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Crimmins v. City of Hoboken

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY APPELLATE DIVISION
Apr 6, 2015
DOCKET NO. A-2895-12T4 (App. Div. Apr. 6, 2015)

Opinion

DOCKET NO. A-2895-12T4

04-06-2015

GEORGE W. CRIMMINS and GOVERNMENT SOLUTIONS, L.L.C., Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF HOBOKEN, MAYOR DAVID ROBERTS, Individually and in his capacity as Mayor of the City of Hoboken; and ALFRED AREZZO, Individually and in his capacity as Construction Code Official of The City of Hoboken, Defendants-Respondents.

Law Offices of Louis A. Zayas, L.L.C., attorneys for appellants (Louis A. Zayas, on the brief). Dvorak & Associates, L.L.C., attorneys for respondents City of Hoboken and Mayor David Roberts (Lori A. Dvorak, of counsel; Amanda E. Miller, on the brief). Apruzzese, McDermott, Mastro & Murphy, P.C., attorneys for respondent Alfred Arezzo (Lisa Barré-Quick, of counsel and on the brief).


NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION Before Judges Simonelli and O'Connor. On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Hudson County, Docket No. L-1722-11. Law Offices of Louis A. Zayas, L.L.C., attorneys for appellants (Louis A. Zayas, on the brief). Dvorak & Associates, L.L.C., attorneys for respondents City of Hoboken and Mayor David Roberts (Lori A. Dvorak, of counsel; Amanda E. Miller, on the brief). Apruzzese, McDermott, Mastro & Murphy, P.C., attorneys for respondent Alfred Arezzo (Lisa Barré-Quick, of counsel and on the brief). The opinion of the court was delivered by O'CONNOR, J.A.D.

Plaintiffs George W. Crimmins and Government Solutions, L.L.C., appeal from an order granting summary judgment to defendants City of Hoboken, David Roberts, and Alfred Arezzo. Plaintiffs also appeal an oral ruling denying their request to adjourn the trial date for two weeks. We reverse and vacate the order granting summary judgment.

I

The complaint, subsequently amended, was filed on March 29, 2011. The amended complaint alleged plaintiffs sustained damages when defendants tortiously interfered with their contractual relations and a prospective economic advantage, and violated Crimmins's constitutional rights and New Jersey's Law Against Discrimination, N.J.S.A. 10:5-1 to -42. Specifically, the amended complaint contended as follows.

Crimmins was the owner of Government Solutions, L.L.C., a consulting business located in Hoboken. Plaintiffs had a business relationship with Stevens Institute of Technology and were involved with one of the school's construction projects. Crimmins's brother, who sat on the Hoboken Zoning Board of Adjustment, questioned the propriety of a zoning application filed by a company partially owned by Arezzo, who was one of the construction code inspectors in Hoboken. In retaliation for his brother's actions, Arezzo said he would not approve Stevens Institute of Technology's construction project. Arezzo also delayed or failed to discharge his duties as inspector in other matters in which plaintiffs were involved. Crimmins claims he complained of Arezzo's retaliatory acts to Roberts, the Mayor of Hoboken, but in response Roberts removed Crimmins as the executive director of the local hospital authority.

The discovery end date, see Rule 4:24-1, was December 1, 2012. On December 7, 2012, the court mailed a notice to the parties stating the trial was scheduled for February 26, 2013. This was the first trial notice issued to the parties. On December 27, 2012, Arezzo filed and served a motion for summary judgment. The following day, the City of Hoboken and Roberts also filed a motion for summary judgment. Both motions were made returnable on January 25, 2013.

The record does not reveal when these defendants served their motion.

At the time the motions were filed, plaintiffs' counsel was on vacation in Arizona and did not return until January 7, 2013. Plaintiffs did not file responses to the motions, due on January 15, 2013. On January 17, 2013, however, plaintiffs' counsel wrote a letter to the Law Division's trial coordinator requesting a two-week adjournment of the trial. He also wrote a letter to the motion judge requesting an adjournment of the motions for "one motion cycle" to permit him to file responses, advising he had been on vacation when the motions were filed, that he did not return until January 7, 2013, and that his litigation schedule precluded him from filing timely responses.

In this instance, "one motion cycle" was two weeks.

The motion judge said he would "consider" adjourning the motions for one motion cycle if all parties agreed to waive the thirty-day requirement in Rule 4:46-1, and further agreed that if the court did not communicate its decision to the parties at least ten days before trial, see ibid., they would not seek to adjourn the trial. Plaintiffs' attorney subsequently reported to the motion judge that both defense attorneys were agreeable to adjourning the motions for one motion cycle provided the trial were adjourned. Plaintiffs then requested that the motion judge adjourn the trial.

Rule 4:46-1 requires that a summary judgment motion be returnable more than thirty days before trial. This rule states in relevant part:

All motions for summary judgment shall be returnable no later than 30 days before the scheduled trial date, unless the court otherwise orders for good cause shown, and if the decision is not communicated to the parties at least 10 days prior to the scheduled trial date, an application for adjournment [of the trial date] shall be liberally granted.

Another judge reviewed plaintiffs' request to adjourn the trial. Before the second judge rendered her decision, plaintiffs' counsel forwarded a letter, dated January 18, 2013, advising that he had been on vacation when served with the two motions for summary judgment, which he characterized as "voluminous," and required a two-week adjournment of the motions to file responses. He pointed out that, given the time constraints in Rule 4:46-1, he needed a two-week adjournment of the trial. Plaintiffs' counsel noted that defendants consented to adjourning the motions for two weeks, as long as the trial date were pushed back two weeks as well. Finally, he advised this was his first request for an adjournment of the trial.

The judge denied the request to adjourn the trial. No reasons were provided. Because the trial date was not adjourned, the motions also were not adjourned. As the deadline had passed, plaintiff did not file a response to either summary judgment motion and, on January 25, 2013, the motion judge granted defendants' unopposed motions for summary judgment.

II

Rule 4:36-3(b) governs the adjournment of trials, which states in pertinent part:

An initial request for an adjournment for a reasonable period of time to accommodate a scheduling conflict or the unavailability of an attorney, a party, or a witness shall be granted if made timely in accordance with this rule. The request shall be made in writing stating the reason for the request and that all parties have consented thereto. The written adjournment request, which shall be submitted to the civil division manager, shall also include a proposed trial date, agreed upon by all parties, to occur as soon as possible after the problem requiring the adjournment is resolved. If consent cannot be obtained or if a second request is made, the court shall determine the matter by conference call with all parties. Requests for adjournment should be made as soon as the need is known but in no event, absent exceptional circumstances, shall such request be made later than the close of business on the Wednesday preceding the Monday of the trial week.

A request for an adjournment of the trial is addressed to the trial judge's discretion. Kosmowski v. Atl. City Med. Ctr., 175 N.J. 568, 575 (2003); see Smith v. Smith, 17 N.J. Super. 128, 131-32 (App. Div. 1951), certif. denied, 9 N.J. 178 (1952). Therefore, we review a court's denial of an adjournment request under the abuse of discretion standard. See Smith, supra, 17 N.J. Super. at 131, 133-34. However, a court's decision to grant or deny an adjournment request is not unfettered. "Judicial discretion is not unbounded and it is not the personal predilection of the particular judge." State v. Madan, 366 N.J. Super. 98, 109 (App. Div. 2004).

Here, to secure a two-week adjournment of the motions, plaintiffs needed an adjournment of the trial for at least two weeks to avoid running afoul of the time constraints imposed by Rule 4:46-1. In our view, plaintiffs substantially complied with Rule 4:36-3(b). Plaintiffs' counsel submitted a letter to the trial calendar coordinator, the motion judge, and then to the second judge. In his letter to the second judge, plaintiffs' counsel gave the reason for seeking a two-week adjournment of the trial and reported he had the other parties' consent. While the request should have been made as soon as plaintiffs' counsel realized he needed an adjournment, the delay of approximately one week was not fatal, and clearly was made well in advance of the close of business on the Wednesday preceding the Monday of the trial week.

In addition, given that plaintiffs' request to adjourn the trial was to enable them to file a response to two summary judgment motions, seeking an adjournment of the trial date for a mere two weeks was reasonable. While the plaintiffs' attorney was available in a literal sense on the date the responses to the motions were due, he was on vacation when the motions were served and that unavailability created a short-lived disruption upon his return that impaired his ability to timely respond to two large summary judgment motions. His inability to timely respond stemmed directly from a very recent period during which he was unavailable.

As plaintiffs substantially complied with the standards in Rule 4:36-3(b), the court abused its discretion when it denied plaintiffs' request to adjourn the trial. Even if plaintiffs had not met the requirements of this Rule, in light of the specific circumstances presented here, the trial court had the authority to grant the relief sought. While the purpose of Rule 4:36-3 was to establish credible trial dates, see Tucci v. Tropicana Casino and Resort, Inc., 364 N.J. Super. 48, 53 (App. Div. 2003), it was "not designed to do away with substantial justice on the merits or to preclude rule relaxation when necessary to 'secure a just determination.'" Ibid. (quoting R. 1:1-2).

Accordingly, we reverse the ruling denying plaintiffs' request to adjourn the trial, and vacate the order granting defendants summary judgment and dismissing the amended complaint.

Reversed and remanded. We do not retain jurisdiction. I hereby certify that the foregoing is a true copy of the original on file in my office.

CLERK OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION


Summaries of

Crimmins v. City of Hoboken

SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY APPELLATE DIVISION
Apr 6, 2015
DOCKET NO. A-2895-12T4 (App. Div. Apr. 6, 2015)
Case details for

Crimmins v. City of Hoboken

Case Details

Full title:GEORGE W. CRIMMINS and GOVERNMENT SOLUTIONS, L.L.C.…

Court:SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY APPELLATE DIVISION

Date published: Apr 6, 2015

Citations

DOCKET NO. A-2895-12T4 (App. Div. Apr. 6, 2015)