Tagged: Initial Disclosures

New Jersey Supreme Court Approves Special Rules for Matters in the Complex Business Litigation Program

On January 1, 2015, the New Jersey Superior Court implemented statewide the Complex Business Litigation Program (“CBLP”) for complex commercial and construction cases with amounts in controversy exceeding $200,000. Each case in the CBLP is managed by a single judge assigned in each county to handle cases in the program, thus providing each case with individualized case management and a jurist experienced in managing and resolving similar matters. On July 27, 2018, the New Jersey Supreme Court adopted special rules for cases in the CBLP to take effect on September 1, 2018. The current rules in Parts I and IV will continue to apply to CBLP cases, unless contradicted by a new rule. The new rules, largely adapted from rules in the federal courts and other business courts, mainly modify certain aspects of case management, discovery, and motion practice. The more substantial practice changes prompted by the new rules are: Initial Disclosures: Following the federal courts’ innovation of requiring mandatory disclosures, litigants in the CBLP will be required to disclose early in the case: 1) all individuals with knowledge of information that the disclosing party may use to support its claims or defenses, 2) copies or a description of (including the location of) all documents, electronic data, or tangible things that the party may use...

Southern District of New York Implements Pilot Program to Govern Pretrial Procedures in Complex Civil Cases

The Judicial Improvements Committee of the Southern District of New York issued a report for a Pilot Project Regarding Case Management Techniques for Complex Civil Cases (the “JIC Report”) in October 2011. The pilot project is designed to run for 18 months and apply to certain matters designated as complex civil cases. The “complex civil case” designation applies to class action lawsuits, multi-district litigation actions, stockholder suits, most product liability cases, antitrust suits, patent and trademark suits, securities cases, environmental matters and cases involving the constitutionality of state statutes. Although many Southern District of New York judges already had individual procedures in place similar to those implemented by the JIC, some of the more novel aspects of this pilot project are described below.