This case involved a construction project wherein the contractor filed an action seeking damages from the condominium association regarding certain unpaid fees allegedly owed to the contractor for completed construction work. The condominium association filed a third-party complaint against the engineering firm, alleging the engineering firm performed incomplete and defective design work in connection with the project. When no affidavit of merit was served within 120 days of engineering firm’s filing of it answer to the third-party complaint, the engineering firm a motion to dismiss the third-party complaint pursuant to the affidavit of merit statute.

The Superior Court, Law Division granted the motion. The condominium association moved for leave to appeal, which the Superior Court, Appellate Division, denied. However, the Supreme Court granted leave to appeal and summarily remanded the matter to the Superior Court, Appellate Division. The Superior Court, Appellate Division, at 406 N.J.Super. 568, 968 A.2d 752, affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded the matter to the Law Division.

The condominium association petitioned for the Supreme Court for certification, which was granted. The Supreme Court held that: (1) failure to hold a conference pursuant to Ferreira v. Rancocas Orthopedic Associates did not toll the statutory time frames for filing affidavit of merit in action alleging professional malpractice, abrogating Saunders ex rel. Saunders v. Capital Health Sys., 398 N.J.Super. 500, 942 A.2d 142, and (2) confusion over the effects of failure to hold a Ferreira conference amounted to extraordinary circumstance that warranted relief from dismissal.

This case involved a construction project wherein the contractor filed an action seeking damages from the condominium association regarding certain unpaid fees allegedly owed to the contractor for completed construction work. The condominium association filed a third-party complaint against the engineering firm, alleging that the engineering firm performed incomplete and defective design work in connection with the project. When no affidavit of merit was served within 120 days of the engineering firm filing its answer to the third-party complaint, the engineering firm filed a motion to dismissal the third-party complaint pursuant to the affidavit of merit statute.
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The Superior Court, Law Division, granted the engineering firm’s motion to dismiss. The condominium association moved for leave to appeal, which the Superior Court, Appellate Division, denied. However, the Supreme Court granted leave to appeal and summarily remanded the matter to the Superior Court, Appellate Division to rule on the appeal.

The Superior Court, Appellate Division held that: (1) application of the doctrine of substantial compliance with the affidavit of merit was not warranted; (2) extraordinary circumstances were not presented that excused the condominium association’s failure to comply with the affidavit of merit statute; (3) a trial court’s failure to schedule the required case management conference does not toll the statutory deadline or otherwise excuse a malpractice claimant’s noncompliance with the affidavit of merit statute; and (4) determination that the condominium association failed to comply with affidavit of merit statute warranted remand for consideration of the condominium association’s common-knowledge argument.

The Church filed a suit against the architect and several other defendants based on alleged construction defects. The Superior Court, Law Division entered summary judgment in favor of the defendants on grounds that the suit was filed beyond the statute of limitations. The Church appeal the dismissal.​

The Superior Court, Appellate Division held that: (1) contract clause, providing that the statute of limitations for any cause of action arising under the contract would run from the date of “substantial completion,” was valid and enforceable under Pennsylvania law, and (2) the Church was not entitled to equitable tolling of the limitations period.

Accordingly the dismissal was affirmed.

This case involved a law suit filed by the surviving spouse of an excavation contractor who was killed when the trench in which he was working collapsed on top of him while he was installing drainage pipe for high school athletic field. The suit, a wrongful death action against, was filed against the school district, its architect, and others including the supplies of the pipe. After denying spouse’s motion to expand scope of discovery, the Superior Court, Law Division, granted the school district’s motion for summary judgment. The plaintiff spouse appealed. The Superior Court, Appellate Division, reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment, but affirmed order denying discovery.

The Supreme Court granted petitions for certification filed by all defendants. In modifying the Appellate Division’s decision, the Supreme Court held that: (1) the plaintiff spouse failed to establish that either district or architect breached a duty of care by failing to supervise contractor’s company’s means and methods of excavating and laying piping in the trench; (2) the plaintiff spouse was entitled to attempt to discover evidence concerning related construction projects involving the school district and the architect that possibly had a bearing on the architect’s and district’s general supervisory responsibilities on construction projects; (3) evidence would support a finding that the school district’s failure to supply the correct pipe to the contractor breached both school district’s contractual duty and its duty of care to provide pipe specified in the architect’s drawings that would have diminished significantly the contractor’s risk of harm; and (4) the evidence would support finding that district’s failure to supply the contractor with a complete set of correct pipe was a proximate cause of the contractor’s death.

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Accordingly the Appellate Division’s was affirmed as modified and the case was remanded to the trial court for additional discovery. After the additional discovery was completed, John King for the architect refiled a motion summary judgment .on the basis that the additional discovery failed to reveal any evidence that the architect exercised any control or supervision over the contractor.

This case involved a wrongful death action brought the surviving spouse of an excavation contractor against the school board and the architect after the excavation contractor was crushed the death when the trench in which he was laying pipe for the school’s scoreboard collapsed. The Superior Court, Law Division, Hunterdon County, entered summary judgment for defendants for the architect finding the architect owed no duty to the excavation contractor because the architect had no job site supervision responsibility. The surviving spouse appealed the dismissal. The Superior Court, Appellate Division, held that: (1) whether school board and architect had viable comparative negligence claim was separate from the issue of whether they had duty of care to excavation contractor; (2) a genuine issues of material fact as to degree of control and supervision, role in supply of uncorrugated drainage pipe, and opportunity and capacity to take corrective measures or warn the excavation contractor to brace trench precluded summary judgment; and (3) the collapse of the trench was foreseeable. The decision of the trial court was affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded to the trial court for further discovery.