* In the matter of Hugh Bell v. County of Hudson, et al., the Court recently rendered a decision affirming the County's termination of Mr. Bell's employment for cause. The County based its termination on its assertion that Mr. Bell had wrongfully taken property from the County. The trial lasted two days and the County's exposure was in excess of $100,000 (inclusive of back pay and lost medical benefits). The Court held the County witnesses were credible and that Mr. Bell showed a blatant disregard for authority and disrespect for his employer by taking public property. Thus, the termination was upheld. John Shahdanian II, assisted by Michael Oppici, represented the County.

* In a trial in Passaic County Superior Court, Thomas Morrone successfully defended a personal injury claim arising out of an automobile accident. The plaintiff alleged back injuries as a result of an automobile accident. Mr. Morrone's client conceded liability for the accident, and the matter was defended solely on the issue of damages. The plaintiff was subject to the zero tort threshold under New Jersey law, which allowed plaintiff to pursue her claim for personal injuries without demonstrating both permanency and a significant impact on her life. Nonetheless, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Mr. Morrone's client.

* In a recent one-week trial before the Hon. Burrell Ives Humphreys, J.S.C., in Passaic County Superior Court, Julien Neals successfully defended a Paterson police officer in a civil rights matter involving a claim of excessive force.

* Jordan Friedman settled a breach of contract case brought by a contractor against a public entity. The resolution required the contractor to accept approximately one-third less than the total amount of its contract, which had been awarded by way of public bidding.

* In the matter of David Eisenhauer v. Township of North Bergen, et al., the Appellate Division affirmed the trial court's grant of Summary Judgment in favor of our client (the Township of North Bergen), dismissing the plaintiffs claims. The matter involved the plaintiff's claims for wrongful termination in violation of New Jersey public policy, defamation, interference with prospective economic advantage and malicious prosecution. The Appellate Division held the trial court properly ruled, since the plaintiff failed to show his termination violated a clear mandate of public policy. John Shahdanian II represented the Township.

* Thomas Morrone successfully defended a personal injury case in a trial in the Bergen County Superior Court. The plaintiff alleged herniated discs and an inability to perform daily activities as a result of an auto accident allegedly caused by our client. The plaintiff's claim was subject to the Limitation on Lawsuit threshold, and was originally dismissed on a motion Mr. Morrone argued in 2003. The Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, reversed the dismissal and remanded the plaintiff's claim to the lower court for trial. The jury returned a verdict in favor of Mr. Morrone's clients.

* John Mallon successfully defended New Jersey Manufacturers Insurance Company (NJM) during a bench trial before Judge Lourdes Santiago in Hudson County. The case involved coverage and insurance fraud issues. John won a dismissal for NJM.

OSCAR WILDE AND COPYRIGHT LAW

Nineteenth-century writer Oscar Wilde had not yet produced the works for which he is best known when he came to the United States in 1882 for a lecture tour to promote a touring opera. He clearly was a celebrity in the making, however, and that is what brought him to the attention of Napolean Sarony. Sarony was making a name for himself, and lots of money, in the still emerging field of photography. He took photographs of the rich and famous, to whom he paid large sums in return for the exclusive right to distribute the photographs.

Wilde posed for 27 pictures taken by Sarony. When the most famous of these was used in an advertisement without Sarony's permission, he sued. The defendant was a lithographer who was said to have reproduced many thousands of copies of the image. Sarony alleged a violation of his copyright in the photograph. The defense was that Congress had the power to protect authors' writings, but not authors' photographs, which were described as mere reproductions of nature created by the operator of a machine.

The case went all the way to the United States Supreme Court (which itself was later the subject of a formal photographic portrait by Sarony). In a decision that has been valuable to photographers and copyright seekers ever since, the Court ruled that Sarony's photograph did indeed have copyright protection. The photograph was deemed a work of art and the product of the photographer's "intellectual invention," no different in nature from a novel. Rebutting the argument that taking a photograph has nothing to do with imagination, the Court described Sarony, as an art critic might have done, as having set up his subject "so as to present graceful outlines, arranging and disposing the light and shade, suggesting and evoking the desired expression."

The essential holding in Sarony's case is no less valid today, but more than a century later there are added layers of legal analysis to consider in our copyright jurisprudence. For example, in a recent case, a photographer took pictures of a blue vodka bottle for use in the vodka producer's marketing. The company then had other photographers take similar photos of the bottle and ended up using them in its advertising campaign. The first photographer sued for copyright infringement in his photographs. He reached back into the 19th century to cite the Sarony case, but lost.

The problem was not that the photographs were unworthy of copyright protection. Everyone agreed they were. However, under a doctrine that is now well established in copyright law, courts will not protect a copyrighted work if the idea underlying it can be expressed only in one way, such that the idea and the expression of it "merge." The basic question in the case was, "How many ways are there to create a `product shot' of a blue vodka bottle?" The court's answer was "not very many."

E-MAIL PRIVACY

Richard was an independent insurance agent who sold policies for a major insurer on an exclusive basis. After a period in which there was some dissatisfaction and acrimony on both sides of the relationship, the company terminated its agreement with Richard. In subsequent litigation brought by Richard, the parties disagreed as to the reason for the termination. The company's position was that it had fired Richard for disloyalty. How the company came by its evidence of disloyalty led to a separate element of the ensuing lawsuit.

When other events raised suspicions about Richard, an attorney for the company and a systems expert searched the company's main file server for any e-mail to or from Richard that caught their attention because of the e-mail headers. There, they claimed to find two messages from Richard to a competing insurance company that essentially asked if the competitor might be interested in acquiring some clients who supposedly were unhappy with Richard's company.

Richard argued to no avail that his former company violated his rights under the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA). First, he asserted that there was a violation of that part of the law that prohibits "intercepts" of electronic communications such as e-mails. However, courts, including the one hearing his case, have reasoned that an intercept can only occur contemporaneously with the electronic transmission. The company did not access Richard's e-mails as he was sending them, but read them later, so it did not "intercept" them.

The second claim was brought under a different part of the ECPA, which creates liability for intentionally accessing without authorization a facility through which an electronic communication service is provided, and thereby obtaining access to a communication while it is in electronic storage. "Storage" in this context means temporary, intermediate storage, or backup storage. A related part of the law makes an exception from liability for the person or entity providing the communications service. Since Richard's e-mails were stored on a system controlled and administered by his company, the company could not be liable for accessing the e-mails.