Charles Toutant

April 13, 2007 | Law.com

Litigation over the 2003 parking garage collapse at Atlantic City, N.J.'s Tropicana Casino Resort that killed four workers and injured 32 others has settled for $101 million, lawyers in the case announced Wednesday. The settlement was the product of three months of negotiations under the auspices of a Superior Court judge whom the parties asked to monitor the case after private mediation failed. Defendants included contractors, engineering and architectural firms, and the corporate owners of the Tropicana.

By Charles Toutant

4 minute read

October 25, 2000 | Law.com

Special drug courts that hold out rehabilitation instead of punishment for nonviolent substance abusers should be the rule, not the exception, in New Jersey, a local public policy group says in a report based on a three-year study. Leadership New Jersey has issued a comprehensive report calling for drug courts --now operating on a pilot basis in seven counties -- to be expanded to all 21.

By Charles Toutant

6 minute read

August 22, 2007 | Law.com

When New Jersey Judge George R. Korpita emerged from a restaurant and saw scratches on his Maserati and Warren Hartzman leaning on it, he did not respond in a judicial manner, according to a federal suit. Kopita allegedly used profanity, threatened violence and called Hartzman an "idiot" for not knowing how valuable the car was. Hartzman was charged with scratching the car, and while the case was pending on Korpita's docket, the judge pressured Hartzman to pay for the damage, Hartzman claims.

By Charles Toutant

6 minute read

June 23, 2011 | New Jersey Law Journal

Defendants in a legal malpractice case are seeking to make Wolff & Samson partner Laurence Smith and his firm responsible for informal advice he gave his sister during her divorce.

By Charles Toutant

4 minute read

August 08, 2008 | New Jersey Law Journal

A New Jersey appeals court on Thursday used the long coattails of a state Supreme Court precedent to find that the city of Long Branch failed to make its case that a stretch of oceanfront property is blighted and thus susceptible to redevelopment.

By Charles Toutant

4 minute read

September 30, 2002 | New Jersey Law Journal

An analysis of criminal case data from the past 10 years shows starkly differing sentencing records among New Jersey's federal judges. During the period from 1992 through 2001, Judge Garrett Brown handed down an average prison sentence of 47.9 months, while Judge Mary Little Cooper`s average was 33.6 months.

By Charles Toutant

3 minute read

July 17, 2001 | Law.com

A divided New Jersey Supreme Court did away with the 142-year-old common-law doctrine of "no work, no pay," saying it was better suited to the time of Charles Dickens than today's workplace. In a divided ruling, the court reinstated an arbitrator's award of back pay to workers for overtime that had been stricken by a trial judge.

By Charles Toutant

5 minute read

February 10, 2003 | New Jersey Law Journal

By Charles Toutant

6 minute read

May 16, 2011 | New Jersey Law Journal

Prudential Insurance Co. can't bar disclosure of internal documents submitted in discovery in a putative class action that alleges it misled policyholders, a U.S. judge in Newark rules.

By Charles Toutant

4 minute read

March 03, 2006 | The Legal Intelligencer

A retiring Bergen County, N.J., judge turned heads this month by issuing a ruling in a case in which the plaintiff's counsel is the firm he planned to join.

By Charles Toutant

6 minute read