NJ Supreme Court Narrowly Defines “Aggrieved Consumer.” End Of The Road For One Type Of “No Injury” Class Action?

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

I have written a number of times about New Jersey's Truth in Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act (TCCWNA). (Here, here, and here for example.) This statute, which was largely ignored after it was enacted in 1981, became increasingly popular in recent years as part of so-called no injury class actions. (So-called mostly by defense counsel, not plaintiff's counsel.) Its popularity may now have come to an end, however, because the New Jersey Supreme Court recently issued its opinion in the highly-anticipated case, Spade v. Select Comfort Corp., which answered two questions certified to it by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, one of which appears to hamper, at the very least, the ability of plaintiffs to sue for alleged violations of the act.

By way of brief background, the TCCWNA was enacted to prevent deceptive practices in consumer contracts by prohibiting the use of illegal terms or warranties. It provides:

No seller . . . shall in the course of his business offer to any consumer or prospective consumer or enter into any written consumer contract . . . or display any written . . . notice or sign . . . which includes any provision that violates any clearly established legal right of a consumer or responsibility of a seller . . . as established by State or Federal law at the time the offer is made . . . or the . . . notice or sign is given or displayed.

To state a claim under the TCCWNA, a plaintiff must prove four elements: (1) that it is a consumer; (2) that defendant is a seller; (3) that the seller offered a consumer contract containing a provision that violated a legal right of the consumer or a responsibility of the seller; and (4) that it was an "aggrieved consumer." Any party found to have violated the TCCWNA is liable for a civil penalty of not less than $100, actual damages, or both, and reasonable attorneys' fees and court costs.

The questions certified to the Supreme Court in Spade arose out of two cases that had been consolidated by the district court. Each involved plaintiffs who ordered furniture pursuant to contracts that violated certain regulations promulgated by New Jersey's Division of Consumer Affairs. The regulations require, among other things, that furniture sellers deliver furniture to customers by or before the promised delivery date or provide written notice that they will not be able to do so. Sellers must also provide notice to the purchaser that if the delivery is late, the consumer has the option of canceling the order and receiving a full refund, or agreeing to accept delivery at a specified later date. The regulations also prohibit sellers from including certain language in their contracts, such as "all sales final," "no cancellations," and "no refunds." In Spade, plaintiffs alleged that the contracts they entered into with defendants did not contain language required by these regulations, contained language prohibited by these regulations, or both. Notably, however, plaintiffs received their furniture deliveries on time.

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No Expert Needed When Party’s Attempt To Fix Clogged Tub “Bespeaks Negligence”

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

Although I have been a homeowner for a number of years and like to think that I am reasonably handy, my knowledge of plumbing is probably more informed by Mario Brothers than anything else. As the saying goes, I know just enough about the subject to be dangerous, so I generally try to avoid it. One of the parties in a recent Appellate Division decision, Sayat Nova, LLC v. Koestner, probably would have been better served heading this advice, as the Appellate Division held that no expert was needed to show that it acted negligently when it broke a pipe in a clogged tub that caused flooding in a restaurant several floors down.

In Sayat Nova, plaintiff operated a restaurant in defendant's building. After water from a third-floor apartment came flooding like a "waterfall" out of the ceiling and into the restaurant, plaintiff sued. The incident that precipitated the lawsuit was not the first time that the restaurant flooded. Four times in the previous three years, water entered the restaurant from the same general area in the ceiling. Each incident "involved more water and more damage than the previous incident." Each time plaintiff notified defendant, but never received a response. On one prior occasion, after receiving no response from defendant, plaintiff hired contractors at his own expense to repair the damage. Plaintiff was never compensated for these expenses or any losses caused by the prior incidents.

In the incident that led to the complaint, water came into plaintiff's restaurant from the ceiling above a different area of the restaurant than in prior incidents. Moments after plaintiff noticed the intrusion, the building's superintendent entered the restaurant with a man plaintiff did not know. Neither man was a licensed plumber. The superintendent told plaintiff: "By mistake we broke the pipe . . . We try to fix the fixture, and the guy by mistake break the pipe." He was apparently referring to a pipe in a third-floor apartment with a "hair-clogged tub." After the incident, defendant called a licensed plumber to fix the problem, but the damage caused plaintiff to have to close his restaurant several days for repairs.

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New Jersey Supreme Court To Clarify Whether TCCWNA Claim Can Be Based On An Omission

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

In a recent post, I wrote about New Jersey's Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act (TCCWNA). It has become exceedingly popular with the plaintiffs' bar and now appears frequently (usually along with another favorite, the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act) in putative consumer class action complaints. The New Jersey Supreme Court is now going to weigh in on one of the unsettled portions of this newly-popular law — whether a TCCWNA claim can be based on an alleged omission in a contract as opposed to an affirmative misstatement.

The case discussed in my prior post — Matijakovich P.C. Richard & Son — involved the purchase and delivery of a washing machine. Although the washing machine was delivered on time, plaintiff sued because the contract with the seller did not contain language disclosing defendant's obligation in case of delay. TCCWNA provides that "[n]o seller . . . shall in the course of his business offer to any consumer or prospective consumer or enter into any written consumer contract . . . which includes any provision that violates any clearly established legal right of a consumer or responsibility of a seller." Defendant moved to dismiss the complaint, arguing that a TCCWNA claim cannot be based on an omission. It argued that TCCWNA prohibits a seller from entering into a consumer contract that includes an illegal term, therefore it applies only to affirmative statements, not omissions of allegedly required language. The district court noted that the New Jersey Supreme Court had not yet ruled on this issue, but relied on federal case law to grant the motion and dismiss the complaint.

A similar scenario played out in another recent decision from the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey,Truglio v. Planet Fitness, Inc. In that case, plaintiff alleged that the contract she entered into with her health club violated TCCWNA by failing to (1) conspicuously set forth her total payment obligations and (2) set forth that a bond had been filed with the Director of the Division of Consumer Affairs. The district court dismissed this portion of the complaint. Like the Matijakovich court, the district court noted that the New Jersey Supreme Court had not yet ruled on the issue, but it relied on the same federal law as the Matijakovich court for the proposition that an alleged omission cannot serve as the basis for a TCCWNA claim.

Both of these courts looked for guidance from the New Jersey Supreme Court and found none. This may soon change. The New Jersey Supreme Court just granted certification in two cases — Bozzi v. OSI Restaurant Partners, LLC and Dugan v. TGI Friday’s, Inc. — that should resolve the question of whether a TCCWNA claim can be based on an alleged omission. I wrote about Dugan here, but both cases involved restaurants not including drink prices on their menus, and both appeals question whether class certification is appropriate under TCCWNA in light of this omission. (The Dugan case also has a second question about whether class certification is appropriate where a restaurant charges different prices for drinks depending on where they are purchased (i.e., at the bar vs. at a table).) It will be many months before we get an answer from the Supreme Court in these cases, but this case will be closely watched by both plaintiffs' and defense counsel so stay tuned.

Do Lawyers Have A Duty To Disclose, To The Client, Significant Errors Committed By Co-Counsel?

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

This was the question posed to the Committee on Professional Ethics of the New York State Bar Association. Its answer was a qualified yes — counsel has a duty to disclose the alleged error to the client but only if it was a significant error that could give rise to a malpractice claim.

The issue presented to the Committee was the following:

The inquirer was engaged to represent a client on the eve of trial. The client’s prior counsel is serving as co-counsel. In preparing the case, the inquirer has learned that co-counsel conducted virtually no discovery and made no document requests, although the inquirer believes correspondence and emails between the parties could be critical to the case. The inquirer believes this was a significant error or omission that may give rise to a malpractice claim against co-counsel. The outcome of the case, however, has yet to be decided. The inquirer is concerned about disclosing this situation to the client because it would undermine inquirer’s relationship with co-counsel, but the inquirer also believes it is in the client’s best interests to disclose the facts as soon as possible.

It is already established in New York (and several other jurisdictions, including New Jersey) that lawyers must report their own significant errors or omissions to clients. This requirement is based partly on Rule 1.4 and partly on Rule 1.7, each of which the Committee discussed in its opinion.

Rule 1.4 requires lawyers to keep clients informed about any material developments in their representation, and to explain issues "to the extent reasonably necessary to permit the client to make informed decisions regarding the representation." A client may decide not to continue to retain a lawyer who makes significant errors or omissions, and the client cannot make an informed decision on this issue unless the lawyer self-reports his own errors. Accordingly, clients must self-report their own significant errors or omissions to their clients. The Committee held that this rationale applied equally to lawyers reporting significant errors or omissions committed by co-counsel because the decision facing the client in both situations was the same — whether to continue to retain the lawyer who committed the errors or omissions — and the client cannot make an informed decision on that issue without full disclosure.

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Alleged Omission In Consumer Contract Does Not Violate New Jersey Consumer Protection Statute

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

New Jersey's Consumer Fraud Act (CFA) has long been a favorite of plaintiff's attorneys, but there is another consumer protection statute that is rapidly gaining on the CFA in popularity — the Truth-in-Consumer Contract, Warranty and Notice Act (TCCWNA) (or, as it is sometimes awkwardly pronounced, "ta-KWA-na"). Although it has been around for thirty years, case law interpreting the TCCWNA is still in its infancy because the act has only recently become a common claim in putative consumer class actions. In a new, unpublished decision, Matijakovich v. P.C. Richard & Son, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, addressed one unsettled aspect of the still developing body of case law surrounding the TCCWNA.

First, a brief primer on the TCCWNA, which provides, in part:

No seller . . . shall in the course of his business offer to any consumer or prospective consumer or enter into any written consumer contract . . . or display any written . . . notice or sign . . . which includes any provision that violates any clearly established legal right of a consumer or responsibility of a seller . . . as established by State or Federal law at the time the offer is made . . . or the . . . notice or sign is given or displayed.

Its purpose is to prevent deceptive practices in consumer contracts by prohibiting the use of illegal terms or warranties. To state a claim under the TCCWNA, a plaintiff must prove four elements: (1) that it is a consumer; (2) that defendant is a seller; (3) that the seller offered a consumer contract; and (4) that the consumer contract contained a provision that violated a legal right of the consumer or a responsibility of the seller. Any party found to have violated the TCCWNA is liable for a civil penalty of not less than $100, actual damages, or both, in addition to reasonable attorneys' fees and court costs.

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