26-2-4108 Montclair State University v. County of Passaic, et al. N.J. Super. App. Div. (Rothstadt, J.A.D.) (11 pp.) In Rutgers v. Piluso, 60 N.J. 142 (1972), the Supreme Court addressed the limits of a local government's authority to regulate on-site construction on a state university's property that was confined to its campus. In this dispute, the court was asked to determine whether those limits apply to a state university's construction of a roadway that intersects with an off-site local road. The court held that the state university was not required to obtain local land use approval for the project because the limits imposed by Rutgers applied equally to the proposed development in this case. (Approved for Publication)

59-8-4101 In re: Lipitor Antitrust Litig., 3rd Cir. (Smith, J.) (106 pp.) Plaintiffs, a putative class of director purchasers, end payors, and individual retailers of pharmaceuticals, appealed from the dismissal of their complaints concerning 2 drugs, Lipitor and Effexor XR, in which plaintiffs alleged that defendants, the companies holding the patents to those drugs, fraudulently procured and enforced their patents and entered into monopolistic settlement agreements with potential manufacturers of generic versions of the drugs. Specifically, plaintiffs alleged that defendants entered “reverse payment settlement agreements” that the Court subjected to antitrust scrutiny in F.T.C. v. Actavis, Inc., 133 S. Ct. 2223. The district court dismissed plaintiffs' reverse payment settlement agreement claim upon finding that their allegations were not plausible; the district court further held that plaintiffs failed to plead plausible allegations that the Lipitor patents were fraudulently procured and enforced. On appeal, the court reversed the dismissal of plaintiffs' claims. The court first held that plaintiffs plausibly alleged unlawful reverse payment settlement agreements since the release of the generic Lipitor manufacturer's potential liability far exceeded any saved litigation cost, permitting a plausible inference that the settlement was an inducement to ensure a longer period of monopoly based on patents that defendants believed were at risk of being found invalid or not infringed. The court held that the Actavis standard did not require the specific valuation pleading demanded by the district court, and held that the burden was on defendants to justify large reverse payment settlements. Similarly, for Effexor, the court found that the generic manufacturer received hundreds of millions of dollars in value in exchange for delaying introduction of generic Effexor, off which defendants profited by billions. Finally, the court held that plaintiffs plausibly pled fraudulent procurement and enforcement of Lipitor patents by alleging that defendants submitted false or misleading data to obtain the patent. (Precedential) [Filed August 21, 2017]

25-8-4082 Moon v. Breathless Inc., 3rd Cir. (Greenway, J.) (18 pp.) Plaintiff appealed from the order of the district court ruling that plaintiff's statutory claims were subject to an arbitration clause in an agreement between the parties. Plaintiff began performing in defendant's club pursuant to a contract, which designated plaintiff as an independent contractor and not an employee of defendant, and included an arbitration clause and class action waiver. Plaintiff sued defendant under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the New Jersey Wage Payment Law and Wage and Hour Law. Defendant moved to dismiss plaintiff's complaint and compel arbitration. After limited discovery, the district court granted defendant's motion, finding that plaintiff's claims fell within the scope of the parties' arbitration clause. On appeal, the court reversed the district court's decision. The court first ruled that the parties had not agreed to arbitrate the issue of arbitrability; thus, the presumption that a court would decide issues of arbitrability applied. But the court ruled that the parties had not agreed to arbitrate plaintiff's statutory claims. The court held, under New Jersey law, for an arbitration clause in the employment context to cover statutory claims, the employee must explicitly agree to arbitrate all statutory claims arising out of the employment relationship or its termination, and reflect the employee's understanding of the claims being waived. The court held that the parties' arbitration clause failed to cover statutory claims because the clause referenced contract disputes rather than statutory rights, or reference plaintiff's employment or independent contractor status. The court rejected defendant's argument that plaintiff's claim that she should have been treated as an employee and not an independent contract arose under the parties agreement; instead, the court held that such a claim arose under the FLSA and the New Jersey acts. (Precedential) [Filed August 17, 2017]