Section 10:5-12(l) of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD) was passed by the New Jersey Legislature in 1977 as a formal amendment to the LAD. The section makes it unlawful for a person "to refuse to buy from, sell to, lease from or to, license, contract with, or trade with, provide goods, services or information to, or otherwise do business with any other person on the basis of" the other person’s statutorily-protected characteristics, or the protected characteristics of the other person’s "spouse, partners, members, stockholders, directors, officers, managers, superintendents, agents, employees, business associates, suppliers, or customers." L. 1977, c. 96, §2. Prior to 2003, Section 12(l) flew under the radar as a little-noted and rarely-invoked provision of the LAD.
The landscape for Section 12(l) changed in 2003, when the Appellate Division held in Rubin v. Chilton Memorial Hospital, 359 N.J. Super. 105 (App. Div. 2003), that Section 12(l) prohibited a hospital’s alleged discriminatory termination of a contract for services with two physicians/independent contractors. Central to the Appellate Division’s holding was its belief that there was no legislative history relating to Section 12(l) or any analogous statutes in other states, freeing the court to divine the legislature’s intent without any extrinsic aids. Numerous courts have followed Rubin and expanded its holding beyond independent contractors, suggesting that any perceived discriminatory termination of a business relationship can be actionable under the LAD.
