A New Jersey appeals court on Tuesday revived a lawsuit alleging that a supermarket and its lawyer had filed anti-competitive sham litigation in an effort to delay development of a shopping complex in Woolwich.

The three-judge panel of the Appellate Division reversed orders by Superior Court Judge Jean B. McMaster that dismissed the malicious abuse of process suit, instructing the judge to look at an alleged pattern by Benjamin Ammons and his attorney, R.S. Gasiorowski, of using court filings to stymie competition.

In 2015, McMaster ruled that Ammon's unsuccessful court challenge to an agreement between Woolwich Township and plaintiffs Main Street at Woolwich LLC, Woolwich LLC and Woolwich Crossings LLC did not qualify for the sham-litigation exception to the Noerr-Pennington doctrine, which generally grants immunity to citizens who petition the government, unless the litigation is “objectively baseless.”