Category Archives: News

McGivney, Kluger, Clark & Intoccia, P.C. is proud to announce that we have achieved Mansfield Certification! Mansfield Certification, facilitated by Diversity Lab, is the culmination of efforts our firm has taken over an 18-month period to further diversify our firm’s leadership and ensure consideration of our broad pool of talent for internal leadership roles as well as client-facing business development and formal pitch opportunities. Our firm has also increased transparency internally, with written and accessible advancement processes and role descriptions.

On March 19, 2023 the New Jersey Appellate Division upheld the decision of the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law Division, Union County, wherein the trial court confirmed an arbitration award dismissing counter claims of breach of contract and negligence against MKCI’s client and granting counsel fees. MKCI’s client in this case was a roofing company in a commercial property, contract dispute.

MKCI partner Chris Hillsley recently obtained a defense non-suit on behalf of a commercial property owner and manager in Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania in the Erica Finley v. AmeriHealth Northeast LLC, et al. matter (case # 191200047). The elevator maintenance company was the only other remaining defendant at trial. Plaintiff alleged significant injuries to her shoulder and arm from getting her hand caught in an elevator. The defense argued successfully that Plaintiff and her expert failed to prove notice of or any defects associated with the elevator in question at the time of the incident.

On March 15, 2023 MKCI Partner and trial counsel Steve Toner obtained a defense verdict on behalf of a transportation client in Kings County, New York in the Lanzarotta & Lasala v. Big Apple Livery Leasing LLC, et al. matter. This case involved a rear end automobile accident. The trial was for damages only, and the jury came back with a with a unanimous defense verdict finding that, despite the claim of bilateral knee surgery to the then 24-year year old plaintiff 4 months post-accident, he did not sustain a significant limitation, or a permanent consequential loss of use, to his knees and therefore did not meet the No-Fault Threshold of a “Serious Injury”.

In a precedential opinion, New Jersey’s Appellate Division held that an arbitration clause may be enforced, even where it lacks an acknowledgment of the parties’ explicit waiver of access to the courts, as required in Atalese v. U.S. Legal Services Group, L.P., 219 N.J. 430 (2014), where the contract is between sophisticated parties. In County of Passaic v. Horizon Healthcare Services, Inc. d/b/a Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey, A-0952-21, the Appellate Division was confronted with a dispute arising out of the parties’ contract, whereby the defendant Horizon had been retained, over the course of a seventeen-year relationship, to administer the County’s self-funded employee health benefit plan. After the contract ended, a lawsuit was filed in 2021 in which the County alleged that the defendant had breached the contract and had not implemented certain modified reimbursement rates.

MKCI invites you to join Joel Clark as he co-chairs and presents on the State of the Docket and Gillian Fisher as she presents on Talc Bankruptcy Updates at the Harris Martin New Jersey Asbestos Litigation Conference on March 3, 2023.

Today, Lawrence McGivney, managing partner of the firm’s New York City office, presented arguments before New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, regarding an issue of constitutional magnitude – interstate sovereign immunity. The question before the Court is whether an instrumentality of the State of New Jersey, responsible for transit operations which annually shuttles millions of commuters between New Jersey and New York can be sued in New York’s courts for claims arising from accidents occurring in New York. The issue has been litigated for the last several years in New York’s trial and appellate courts, following the decision of the United States Supreme Court in Franchise Tax Board of California v. Hyatt, 587 U.S. ____ (2019) (also known as Hyatt III), which concluded that interstate sovereign immunity was embedded in the United States Constitution.

MKCI Florham Park General Liability Partners Gary J. Intoccia and Joseph A. Gallo recently obtained a defense verdict in Bergen County Superior Court after a two-week trial involving a claim by a minor Plaintiff that he was injured during a “high-intensity” pre-season workout at a local high school gym that led to the development of rhabdomyolysis, a rare condition involving a breakdown of muscle tissue that releases a damaging protein into the blood. Prior to trial, Plaintiff presented a significant six-figure settlement demand.

In Morris v. Rutgers-Newark, et al., the Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, held that Law Against Discrimination hostile educational environment and retaliation claims can be based on cumulative acts experienced by multiple members of a “small and cohesive unit” and rejected the Defendants’ argument that hostile educational environment claims required an individual analysis pertaining to each discrete protected trait of race and sexual orientation. It also reversed the trial court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs’ retaliation claims by viewing the “constellation of surrounding circumstances” in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs.

On May 3, 2022, in a published decision captioned as Kathleen DiFiore v. Tomo Pezic, et al., the Appellate Division considered consolidated appeals relating to the conduct of “Independent Medical Examinations” – sometimes referred to as “defense medical examinations” – within the context of bodily injury litigation. This decision puts to rest years of confusion and disagreement between the plaintiffs’ and defense bar regarding when third-parties should be permitted to observe forensic examinations, or when those examinations should be recorded, and also yields a clear rule of law that allows defense medical experts a meaningful opportunity to examine allegedly injured claimants. Given the fact that, by the time defense medical experts are involved in a typical case, plaintiffs have usually spent significant time presenting to numerous experts of their own, without defendants being aware of these proceedings, let alone observing them, this ruling further balances the expert scales in bodily injury litigation.