The political headwinds continued to wreak havoc on the Hughes Justice Complex during this past year. First, the New Jersey State Senate refused to approve Gov. Christie’s two nominations to the highest court. The disputes featured contentious hearings of the Senate Judiciary Committee and subsequent diatribes exchanged between the governor’s office and the leadership in the State Senate regarding the future direction of the high court. Judicial nominations to the Law Division languished while vacancies continued to rise. The storm reached a crescendo when the Supreme Court held that the Legislature could not regulate judicial contributions to pensions. Leaders of both parties fired salvos at a defenseless court. The Legislature quickly authorized a constitutional amendment, to be submitted to the voters in November, on allowing legislative action to reduce judicial benefits. Despite these distractions, the Supreme Court concentrated on the essential task of deciding cases.
Tort cases did not generate headlines. There were no blockbuster decisions and no dramatic changes in the law. A recurrent theme is the justices’ refusal to expand tort law and their reinforcement of various immunities. Highlights included a decision that curtails the liability of an employer for an employee’s injuries and another that provides immunity for workers’ compensation carriers from lawsuits for willful disobedience of orders, an opinion holding that a nonprofit entity was not responsible for the criminal misconduct of its staff. There were also opinions issued that sharply circumscribed the potential legal responsibilities of public entities. Some of the decisions appear to advocate an aggressive approach to dismissing liability claims on summary judgment.
