“One of the factors a court should consider in determining the amount of an attorneys’ fee award is the degree of success the plaintiff has achieved in the litigation”
How later courts described this case
- “One of the factors a court should consider in determining the amount of an attorneys’ fee award is the degree of success the plaintiff has achieved in the litigation”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
PER CURIAM.
We affirm the judgment of the Appellate Division substantially for the reasons set forth in Judge Skillman’s opinion below, 314 N.J.Super. 293, 300-03 , 714 A.2d 958 (1998). Judge Skillman concluded that this Court’s affirmance of Abbamont v. Piscataway Township Board of Education, 238 N.J.Super. 603 , 570 A.2d 479 (App.Div.1990), by an equally divided Court on the question whether a punitive damage claim under the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (CEPA), N.J.S.A. 34:19-1 to -8, may be maintained against a public entity, 138 N.J. 405 , 650 A.2d 958 (1994), {Abbamont I), constituted the controlling law under the “law of the case” doctrine, and therefore was binding on the lower courts in this case. 314 N.J.Super. at 301-303 , 714 A.2d 958 .
Having so recently addressed in Cavuoti v. New Jersey Transit Corp., 161 N.J. 107 , 735 A.2d 548 (1999), the question whether a public entity may be liable for punitive damages under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (LAD), N.J.S.A 10:5-1 to —49, we decline at this time to revisit the issue raised in Abbamont I *15 whether a public entity may be liable under CEPA for punitive damages.