Although the New Jersey Supreme Court has consistently looked to federal law for interpretive guidance with regard to the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, N.J.S.A. 10:5-1, et seq. (the NJLAD), the Court has a history of departing from federal precedent when it comes to contingency fee enhancements under the NJLAD. Indeed, in a recent decision, Walker v. Guiffre, 209 N.J. 124 (2012), the New Jersey Supreme Court reaffirmed its prior holding in Rendine v. Pantzer, 141 N.J. 292 (1995), a landmark decision, holding that contingent fee enhancements are permitted in attorney fee awards under the NJLAD’s fee-shifting provision, N.J.S.A. 10:5-27.1.
In Rendine, a pregnancy discrimination case brought under the NJLAD, the New Jersey Supreme Court first considered the propriety of contingent fee enhancements under state law. In ruling that such enhancements are appropriate under the NJLAD, the Rendine court recognized that the United States Supreme Court had already rejected fee enhancements under federal fee-shifting statutes in City of Burlington v. Dague, 505 U.S. 557 (1992). Acknowledging that its holding was a rare departure from following federal precedent with respect to civil rights matters, the New Jersey Supreme Court stated that “[a]lthough we have often incorporated the reasoning of federal cases construing analogous federal statutes in our interpretation of the LAD, we have not been reluctant to depart from federal precedent when we deem it appropriate.”
