Lawyer Loses Challenge To Rule Limiting The Amount Of Time He Could Speak At City Council Meeting

by: Peter J. Gallagher (@pjsgallagher) (LinkedIn)

There is a lawyer joke in here somewhere about lawyers suing to get more time to speak or how someone should sue to force lawyers to talk less. Potential jokes aside, the issue in Feld v. City of Orange was an interesting one. In Feld, plaintiff challenged a municipal ordinance that reduced, from ten minutes to five minutes, the time members of the public could speak on certain matters at city council hearings. Plaintiff claimed that this ordinance violated his First Amendment right to free speech. Spoiler Alert: He lost. But the issue and the decision are nonetheless interesting.

Feld was the latest chapter in litigation that has been raging between plaintiff, a lawyer, acting on behalf of himself and his parents' business, and the City of Orange for years. (In a prior decision, the Appellate Division noted that plaintiff considered himself a "zealous gadfly" and a "radical barrister.") At some point during this long-running battle, the city adopted an ordinance "that reduced the time from ten minutes to five that individual members of the public could speak at City Council meetings on general issues, agenda items or second readings of ordinances before adoption." The city council claimed the change was necessary because "council meetings can extend late into the evening or early into the next day" and this "discourages, if not precludes[,] a fair opportunity to be heard by other members of the public." The city council further claimed that, "without appropriate and rational limitations, the rights of all public speakers [would be] curtailed and undermined." The city council also noted that other municipalities limited the time for speaking during public meetings to five minutes.

The underlying issue in Feld involved plaintiff's objection to the city council's adoption of a resolution that allowed the mayor to sign a lease and option to buy a building owned by the YWCA of Orange, which was in bankruptcy. He challenged the resolution when it was before the city council, and, after it passed, filed a 257 paragraph complaint in lieu of prerogative writs seeking to have it invalidated. As part of this complaint, he also challenged the rule reducing the amount of time members of the public could speak at city council hearings. After filing his complaint, plaintiff filed an order to show seeking, among other things, to restrain the city from enforcing the five-minute rule while the lawsuit was pending. The trial court heard oral argument on the order to show cause, and took testimony from a witness on behalf of the city, who testified that the rule was necessary to "administer the Council meetings more efficiently," and that it was an attempt to "make sure that all of the comments are heard and that everyone gets a chance to talk."

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Lender Allowed To Foreclose But Punished By Court For Violating Consumer Fraud Act

by: Peter J. Gallagher

A New Jersey trial court issued an interesting opinion last week, allowing a lender to foreclose but imposing significant limitations on the lender because the court concluded that the lender had violated the Consumer Fraud Act.

In Freedom Mortgage Corporation v. Mamie E. Major, borrower wanted to refinance the mortgage on her home to lower the 5 5/8 interest rate and take out additional money to help pay for her grandson’s college tuition. Defendant was 70 years old, earned approximately $30,000 per year and owed $341,500 on her existing mortgage. At the time of the refinance her home had a market value of $365,000, but she eventually abandoned her plan to obtain more equity from the home and instead refinanced just to lower the interest rate.

Her existing home loan was an FHA-insured loan and was current, so Freedom Mortgage Company treated the refinance as an FHA “Streamline loan,” which required little or no new or extra documentation and did not require a new appraisal. According to Freedom, FHA guidelines allowed it to rely on the underwriting performed by the prior lender. Nonetheless, before approving the refinance, Freedom used a “net benefit” test to determine whether it was justified, and concluded that it was because both the interest rate and the monthly payment would be lower under the new loan.

At the closing, borrower signed a HUD-1A Settlement Statement that showed a new loan of $354,005, which included the payoff of the prior loan, the payoff of open tax balances, and $11,479.65 in settlement charges, payable to Freedom, for, among other things, a loan discount fee, commitment fee, application fee, and courier fee.

After making six payments on the new loan, borrower defaulted. Freedom filed a foreclosure complaint, which borrower answered. Freedom then moved to strike the answer and proceed with the foreclosure as uncontested. The court granted this motion, but found that there was a factual issue as to whether Freedom violated the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act (“CFA”) in connection with the refinance. After trial on this issue, the court concluded that Freedom had, in fact, violated the CFA.

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Does A Condominium Association Have Any Recourse When A Court Denies Its Request For Legal Fees?

Kate Muscalino aims to answer that question in her recent article, "You May Have Recourse When A Court Denies Your Board Attorneys's Fees," which begins:

Collections have become an area of increasing concern for condominium associations, as some unit owners struggle to pay their common charges on time and in full. As unit owners' debt continues to rise, associations are left with few options to collect: a lien on the unit and a lawsuit against the individual unit owner.

Many condo associations have been frustrated in their attempts to collect from a unit owner individually, as judges are often sympathetic to delinquent unit owners, offering extensions, scrutinizing certifications of amounts due and reducing or eliminating the association's ability to collect attorneys' fees.

Click here for the rest of the article.

Reducing the Cost of Going Where No Man Has Gone Before

by: Katharine A. Muscalino

Under existing Board of Public Utilities Rules, developers seeking to build in undeveloped areas have been forced to bear the full cost of utility extension, while developers building in more developed, metropolitan areas, have enjoyed the benefit of sharing the expense of utility extension with existing ratepayers in the area. The rule was designed to encourage smart growth and reduce sprawl. The result was that developers in rural and less developed areas of New Jersey were facing massive, if not prohibitive, infrastructure expenses.

After getting an $8 million bill for utility extension for a 555 home development in Howell, one developer sued the BPU, challenging its authority to adopt such a rule, codifying disparate treatment of developers based on the existing development and infrastructure in a given area. The Appellate Division ultimately ruled that such a rule, treating development in some areas of the state differently than others at the developer’s expense, is beyond the state agency’s statutory authority.

In response to the Appellate Division’s opinion, the BPU has introduced a new rule, still in draft, that would allow developers to share the cost of utility extension over the entire ratepayer base. The new rule will make large-scale development in rural areas possible, and offers the possibility of utility service to both new and existing homeowners and businesses in these areas. The details of the new rule’s implementation will be discussed at the BPU’s meeting on Tuesday, October 18, 2011, including what portion of the extension costs should continue to borne by the developer and whether the developer should pay a deposit for the extension. Developers with plan to build in areas that are not served by existing infrastructure, or in rural areas may want to consider attending the meeting or contacting a BPU stakeholder to express support for the proposed rule. The meeting is expected to draw critics of the proposed rule who argue that it will lead to sprawl, compromise smart growth, and endanger scarce resources. To review a copy of the draft rule, click here.

Fannie And Freddie On The Firing Line

by: Peter J. Gallagher

In a recent post, "Not Fade Away: Could The 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Survive In A World Without Fannie And Freddie," I discussed the growing drumbeat surrounding the efforts of some members of Congress and the administration to do away with, or at the very least reign in, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Now, Republicans in the House of Representatives have taken the first steps towards this goal, putting forth legislature that would reduce the role both enties play in the market and cut the pay of their executives.

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