Credit: ShutterstockAppellate Div. Follows Fed Reasoning on Recusal for Legislator-Turned-Judge
“A compensation judge who formerly sponsored a bill enacted into law is not per se disqualified from presiding over cases implicating or interpreting that law," Appellate Division Judge Lisa Puglisi said.
November 25, 2024 at 05:25 PM
4 minute read
In a published decision, the Appellate Division sided with a judge who refused to recuse herself from a case involving a law she sponsored while serving in the state Legislature.
Judge Joann Downey presided over a workers’ compensation case filed by the surviving spouse of a school teacher who returned to work when her school reopened in February 2021, contracted COVID-19 and died as a result of respiratory failure. Downey co-sponsored a bill as an assembly member that changed the workers’ compensation statute to create a “rebuttable presumption” that an essential employee contracting COVID-19 during the state of emergency was work-related, according to the opinion.
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J. Brugh Lower of Gibbons has entered an appearance for industrial equipment supplier Devco Corporation in a pending trademark infringement lawsuit. The suit, accusing the defendant of selling knock-off Graco products, was filed Dec. 18 in New Jersey District Court by Rivkin Radler on behalf of Graco Inc. and Graco Minnesota. The case, assigned to U.S. District Judge Zahid N. Quraishi, is 3:24-cv-11294, Graco Inc. et al v. Devco Corporation.
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