Appeals

Experienced Appellate Attorneys

The attorneys at Brause, Brause & Ventrice, L.L.C., have extensive experience in appellate practice. Whether you wish to appeal an adverse decision or whether you must respond to an appeal after you prevailed at trial, our Middlesex County appellate attorneys have the experience and skill to aggressively argue your case on appeal.

Appellate practice is complicated and requires knowledge and experience in both the substantive law and the rules of appellate procedure. Our attorneys stand ready to draw upon their combined experience of more than 60 years in various areas of the law to present your appeal in a professional well written and persuasively argued written brief and at oral argument before the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey and even the New Jersey Supreme Court when appropriate. We have also argued in Federal Court before the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

The appellate attorneys at the Middlesex County firm of Brause, Brause & Ventrice, L.L.C., have successfully argued appeals and responded to appeals in various areas of the law, including divorce and family law, criminal defense, workers’ compensation, personal injury, and various other areas of the law. The following are some examples of arguments that we have made on appeal:

• Divorce and Family Law – We convinced the New Jersey Appellate Division to give our client a new trial after the trial judge entered a default judgment against her. This was a complex divorce that involved a 27 year marriage, a lucrative medical practice, substantial earnings, and personal and business holdings located in the United States and overseas. The Appellate Division agreed with us that our client, who did not have an attorney during the default hearing, was not given the advanced notice that was required to proceed with the default hearing. The Appellate Division also accepted our arguments that the trial judge should not have allowed into evidence a forensic accountant’s expert report that was hearsay, and did not perform the correct analysis to arrive at the amount and duration of alimony.
• We persuaded the Appellate Division to reverse the decision of a trial judge who terminated our client’s right to receive alimony after her ex-husband convinced the trial judge that our client was cohabitating with another man. The Appellate Division agreed with us that we presented ample evidence to dispute her ex-husband’s claim of cohabitation to require a hearing on the issue before the trial judge.
• We successfully defended an appeal that was filed by our client’s ex-husband, who attempted to terminate alimony because he claimed that his automotive repair business had suffered drastically since the time of their divorce. The Appellate Division agreed with us that our client’s ex-husband did not prove a sufficient downturn in his financial circumstances since their divorce to warrant a termination or even a reduction in alimony.
• Workers’ Compensation – We successfully argued before the New Jersey Supreme Court that a volunteer firefighter who was injured while volunteering as a firefighter was entitled to receive temporary disability benefits at the maximum rate of compensation even though she had no form of income. This was the first time that the State Supreme Court ruled that temporary disability benefits were available to a volunteer firefighter who had no other form of income. Before this victory, a volunteer firefighter was only assured temporary disability benefits if she had some other form of income at the time that she was injured.
• We successfully persuaded the Appellate Division that a Workers Compensation Judge did not perform the proper legal analysis to determine whether our client, who worked part-time when she was injured, should be entitled to receive workers’ compensation benefits based upon a full-time 40 hour work week because her injuries were so severe that they prevented her from working in her chosen field of employment on a full-time basis in the future. The Appellate Division remanded the case back to the Workers Compensation Judge to perform the proper legal analysis.
• Civil Litigation – We asked the New Jersey Supreme Court to hear an appeal that challenged a ruling that dismissed an excessive force complaint against members of law enforcement that was based on qualified immunity. In our case, members of law enforcement fired more than 60 gunshots at an unarmed suspect after a high speed chase ended when a state trooper rammed our client’s vehicle into scaffolding that surrounded a building. Our complaint, that was pending in the New Jersey Superior Court, was dismissed because the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit found that the members of law enforcement were entitled to qualified immunity under the Federal Civil Rights Act when this matter was pending in Federal Court. We argued on appeal that Federal Courts have been more tolerant of civil rights violations when members of law enforcement argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity than New Jersey State Courts. We petitioned for certification to ask the New Jersey Supreme Court to permit us to pursue this case in the New Jersey Superior Court because the New Jersey State Constitution provides a more expansive interpretation of civil rights than the United States Constitution, so a New Jersey Superior Court should make its own decision whether these defendants violated the New Jersey State Constitution. Although the State Supreme Court ultimately denied our petition for certification and did not hear this appeal, we believe that the issues that we argued in this appeal shed light on the issue of qualified immunity, an area of the law that we believe to be ripe for further appellate review.
• Criminal Defense – Helping defendants charged with serious crimes throughout Middlesex County and beyond, our appellate lawyers have successfully argued various points of law in which we found mistakes of law by trial judges, including illegal searches and seizures, errors in jury instructions, improper introduction of evidence, rejection from pre-trial intervention, and excessive sentences.
• Juvenile Delinquency – We were among the appellate lawyers who successfully defended a trial court’s decision that denied the news media’s attempt to gain access to the juvenile court proceedings that arose out of the Sayreville High School football hazing case.
• Municipal Court Appeals – Our appellate practice also includes appeals from Municipal Court.

The foregoing are offered only as examples of some of the results that we have obtained, and involve specific factual and legal circumstances that are unique to the individual cases. These examples should not be construed or interpreted to suggest that we may obtain similar results in your case.

Contact Our Middlesex County Appellate Lawyers for Representation

Our firm takes pride in its New Jersey roots, serving Middlesex County and the surrounding communities. For a free initial consultation, call 732-767-0044 or contact us online today to speak with the appellate lawyers at Brause, Brause & Ventrice, L.L.C..