New Jersey’s minimum wage rate is going up again. The new minimum wage rate during this incremental increase is $13 per hour effective January 1, 2022.
New Jersey employment law governs the classification of workers as employees or independent contractors. The classification is important and fact sensitive. It has far reaching consequences. The Appellate Division recently issued a published opinion in 
the case of East Bay Drywall, LLC vs. the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, which examined some of these issues and provides guidance for both employers and employees.
Background
The Department of Labor and Workforce Development administers the New Jersey Unemployment Compensation and Temporary Disability Insurance Laws. It collects revenues from employers and employees to fund these benefits. However, “employers” only need to make contributions for their “employees,” not for independent contractors. Therefore, there is an economic incentive for businesses to classify workers as contractors rather than employees. However, misclassification can trigger severe consequences.
Some important New Jersey employment law issues were explored in a recent opinion issued by the Appellate Division of the Superior Court concerning the New
Jersey Law Against Discrimination in the case of Kazaba versus Randolph Township Board of Education.
Charles Kazaba sued the Randolph Township Board of Education for age discrimination under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination in Law Division of the State Superior Court for allegedly taking discriminatory actions against him because of his age. He was a security for the Board for more than 21 years and had no disciplinary record. For many years Kazaba was the only security guard, but at some point the Board hired additional, younger security guards with prior law enforcement experience (these were referred to as the “Ram Guards” after the high school’s mascot). At sixty years of age he was the oldest security guard. He claimed that his supervisors took a course of or actions favoring the younger Ram Guards and making his job more difficult because he was older.
A frequent problem in New Jersey employment law occurs when a business offers someone a job without a contract, that person then quits their current employment, the business rescinds the offer, and the employee is left without a job. There is no contract, so the employee cannot sue for breach of contract. What can she do? In an important New Jersey employment law decision, the State Supreme Court ruled in the case of Goldfarb v. Solimine that the employee
has a viable claim for promissory estoppel and may recover “reliance damages” from the prospective employer based on what she would have made had she not quit in reliance on the promise and stayed at her prior job. Promissory estoppel is a legal doctrine which provides that a party should be responsible for the consequences when a promisee relied on its promise and suffers damages when the promisor fails to perform.
David Solimine offered Jed Goldfarb a job managing his family’s investment portfolio. Goldfarb would receive an annual salary of $250,000-$275,000, plus ten to twenty percent of profits made because of his efforts or advice. Neither the offer nor a contract were ever put in writing. However, Goldfarb left his current job as a financial analyst (where he had made between $308,000 and $466,000 per year) in reliance on Solomine’s promise of employment. After Goldfarb quit, Solimine withdrew the offer and Goldfarb found himself unemployed.
On March 9, 2021, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued an important employment law decision on pregnancy discrimination in the case of Delanoy v. Township of Ocean, which confirms the distinct causes of actions that may be brought and how they should be brought under the New Jersey Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (“NJPWFA”).
A female police officer for the Township of Ocean brought a pregnancy discrimination case against the Township based on standing operating procedures
(“SPOs”) and the Township’s treatment, which she alleged discriminated against her in violation of the NJPWFA and New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination (“NJLAD”).
A Federal Appeals Court’s recent precedential decision in the case of Gibbs v. City of Pittsburgh may have profound implications for New Jersey civil service appeals from psychological disqualification of law enforcement officer applicants.
Christopher Gibbs applied to be a police officer with the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Police Department. He was an honorably discharged Marine and had been accepted for employment with five other law enforcement agencies. Similar to the practice in New Jersey and as required by Pennsylvania state law, after he was found otherwise qualified Pittsburgh offered Gibbs an offer of employment conditioned upon passing an examination to determine whether he was
psychologically fit for the job. Gibbs had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (“ADHD”). The examining doctor found him unfit because of his ADHD. The psychologists conducting the examination ignored the fact that Gibbs’s ADHD was under control, that five other departments had found him psychologically fit, that he had unblemished records as a police officer and a Marine, and they never explained how Gibbs’s ADHD would interfere with his ability to perform his duties as a police officer.
The Appellate Division recently reversed the dismissal of a casino employee’s lawsuit for whistleblower retaliation, discrimination and sexual harassment, demonstrating again that New Jersey employment law provides some of the country’s strongest employee protections, while also demonstrating the limits of those protections.
Background
In that case, Fox v. DGMB Casino, LLC, Regina Fox was employed as director of security by DGMB Casino, LLC (the corporate name for Resorts Casino Hotel), and had worked there for thirty seven years. She was sixty two. As director of security, she was in charge of staffing requirements and other regulatory mandates of the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement. Any changes in staffing were required to be reported to the Division.
The Appellate Division recently issued an important New Jersey employment law decision concerning the due process rights of tenured teachers.
Tenured teachers have significantly more protections than untenured teachers.
An untenured teacher is essentially an “employee-at-will” who may be terminated without cause; however, an untenured teacher has the right to require that her board of education discuss her termination in public session. Thus, the board cannot discuss an untenured teacher’s employment without first giving the untenured teacher formal notice of the intention to discuss her employment and the opportunity to require that it be held in public; this notice is referred to as a “Rice Notice” and derives from the Open Public Meetings Act.
It is interesting that the trend in New Jersey employment law is to enforce arbitration agreements in employment contracts, while at the same time finding them unenforceable in consumer and commercial contracts. However, the law is the same: whatever the area, arbitration agreements are interpreted and enforced – or not enforceable – under New Jersey contract law. It’s therefore worth looking at two recent opinions in these areas to see what can be learned.
The Knight Case: Consumer Contracts and Consumer Fraud
In the first, a published opinion in case of Knight v. Vivint Solar Developer, LLC, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey stuck down an arbitration agreement which the defendants tried to enforce in a consumer fraud lawsuit over the sale of solar panels. After Knight sued, Vivint filed a motion to 
dismiss her complaint and enforce an arbitration agreement which required the parties to arbitrate their disputes.
Background
In the wake of the death of George Floyd, New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir S. Grewal issued two directives amending New Jersey’s Internal Affairs Policy and Procedures (commonly referred to as the “Attorney General Guidelines” or the “IAPP”). The thrust of these directives is to allow for the disclosure of New Jersey 
law enforcement officer disciplinary records to promote transparency and confidence in police departments and internal affairs disciplinary procedures, as well as to broaden the discovery available to criminal defendants. Those issues are worthy of a dissertation in themselves, but here I want to focus briefly on their effect in New Jersey employment litigation.
Problems Shielding Records in Employment Law Cases
New Jersey Lawyers Blog