Unpublished Opinions for the Week of December 26, 2016

01-2-2052 State v. 1-H&R, N.J. Super. App. Div. (per curiam) (9 pp.) Defendant appealed the order forfeiting and transferring title of his weapons and forfeiting his FPI card. Girlfriend filed a domestic violence complaint and obtained a TRO against defendant. Girlfriend later dismissed the TRO so that defendant would not lose his position as a police officer, but state moved for forfeiture of the weapons and the FPI card on the grounds that defendant posed a threat to public safety. The police department allowed defendant to be rearmed, but state revoked its consent to defendant’s possession of his duty weapon based on an assault incident at a night club. At the weapons forfeiture hearing, defendant requested an adjournment to obtain counsel but the court denied the adjournment and found that defendant’s conduct during the domestic violence and nightclub incidents precluded the return of his weapons. On appeal, defendant argued the trial court abused its discretion in denying his request for an adjournment. The court found that the trial court erred in not granting the adjournment. Defendant’s request was reasonable because he found out for the first time at the hearing that the state would raise the nightclub incident and the failure to grant the adjournment prejudiced defendant since the state’s direct examination of the nightclub witnesses included objectionable and prejudicial leading questions.

01-2-2089 Essex Cnty. Corr. Officers PBA Local No. 382 v. Cnty. of Essex, N.J. Super. App. Div. (per curiam) (23 pp.) This case returned after remand. Plaintiffs are the union and the local that represent Essex County corrections officers, as well as the presidents of those labor organizations. Defendants are Essex County and its Board of Chosen Freeholders along with Education and Health Centers of America, Inc. (“EHCA”) and Community Education Centers, Inc. (“CEC”), the private companies that provide the disputed housing and other inmate services at Delaney and Logan Halls. In August 2012, plaintiffs filed a complaint alleging that the current contract the county awarded to EHCA is an ultra vires delegation of the county’s statutory duty to confine and maintain inmates. Plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief. After remand, plaintiffs argued, as they did previously, that they established that Logan and Delaney Halls are predominantly privatized jails. Defendants argued that the trial court correctly held that the undisputed evidence unequivocally established that inmates receive specialized treatment at the Halls, and thus the EHCA contract did not constitute an unlawful delegation of the county’s responsibility to maintain custody of inmates. Here, contrary to plaintiffs’ arguments, the appellate panel found that the trial court did not err in its discovery decisions. The parties were permitted to engage in discovery limited to the sole question of whether EHCA’s Delaney Hall and Logan Hall facilities actually provide ‘authorized inmate rehabilitative and similar services. That was consistent with the scope of the remand. Plaintiffs failed to meet their burden to establish the invalidity of the contract since the record unequivocally demonstrates that Delaney and Logan Halls are being utilized for the permitted purposes of providing substance abuse, rehabilitative, and similar services to inmates. Summary judgment was therefore appropriately granted in favor of defendants. Plaintiffs’ action to invalidate the county’s contract with EHCA was properly dismissed.