Unpublished Opinions for the Week of March 13, 2017

07-2-2683 Wright v. Twp. of Cherry Hill, N.J. Super. App. Div. (per curiam) (6 pp.) Plaintiff appealed from the order of the trial court denying his motion for reconsideration of the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant. Plaintiff’s appeal came following a remand from the court, which found that the trial court erred in ordering summary judgment in the absence of findings of fact or conclusions of law. The court reversed the grant of summary judgment and remanded again, finding that the trial court again failed to comply with the requirements in granting summary judgment. Although the trial court contended that court rules indicated that it need not review an unopposed summary judgment motion as vigorously as a contested motion, the court held that even in an unopposed summary judgment motion the trial court was required to detail its findings of fact and conclusions of law. The court further held that where a trial court decided to adopt or rely upon the unopposed summary judgment motion’s factual findings and legal conclusions, it had to make the fact of that reliance explicit. Thus, based on the trial court’s admission that it did not read defendant’s brief in support of its motion and instead relied on the facts being deemed admitted, the court ruled that the trial court failed to meet the requirements of the rule governing summary judgment. Finally, the court noted that an unopposed summary judgment motion required the same level of review as a contested motion, particularly where the non-moving party was a self-represented litigant.

11-2-2655 Lewis v. Hull, N.J. Super. App. Div. (per curiam) (15 pp.) Defendants appealed from the grant of summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs in their action alleging breach of a settlement agreement between the parties. The parties were previously engaged in prior litigation, which ended with a settlement agreement. In the agreement, defendants agreed to remediate contaminated property previously owned by plaintiffs and later by defendants, and to hold plaintiffs harmless for any further claims on or remediation of the property, in exchange for plaintiff’s payment of $290,000 to cover, in part, the remediation costs. Defendants subsequently refused to remediate the property, and plaintiffs ultimately remediated the property at their own expense. Plaintiffs filed this suit alleging defendants’ breach of the parties’ settlement agreement. Plaintiffs sought and were granted summary judgment, and were awarded $290,000 and attorneys’ fees as authorized under the settlement agreement. On appeal, defendants argued that summary judgment was improper, contending that there was a genuine issue of material fact. Defendants alleged that plaintiffs fraudulently induced defendants to enter the settlement agreement by failing to disclose in the underlying litigation that plaintiffs had insurance coverage for defendants’ claims. The court affirmed the grant of summary judgment. The court ruled that, even assuming, as the trial court did, that plaintiffs were deceptive during discovery in the underlying litigation, defendants breached the settlement agreement by refusing to perform their covenants therein. The court held that defendants only had the option, with respect to an allegedly fraudulently-obtained contract, to either rescind and return the settlement funds, or affirm and perform their obligations thereunder. Thus, the court ruled that by refusing to remediate the site, defendants effectively chose to rescind the settlement agreement, and therefore could not retain the settlement proceeds.