Anthony V. D'Elia
How Judge D'Elia rules, drawn from 22 signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
About Judge D'Elia
Anthony V. D’Elia has served as a New Jersey Superior Court judge in Hudson County since 2016 and became the county’s Complex Business Litigation Program judge in 2021. Before joining the bench, he practiced civil litigation and served as counsel to local public entities. He earned his law degree from Seton Hall University School of Law.
Judge D'Elia's practices and standing orders
The court's website lists no individual practices or standing orders of Judge D'Elia's own (checked October 11, 2026), so the court's local rules and general orders are the place to look (court page ↗).
Standing orders for every case in this court
Orders the court applies to all of its cases, whichever judge has them, as published on the court's website (checked October 11, 2026).
How Judge D'Elia decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
In a commercial fraud claim over disputed development potential, he treats a sophisticated buyer's own decision to retain experts before signing, even without a final answer from them, as a waiver of reasonable reliance on the seller side's representations, regardless of how many separate alleged misrepresentations are stacked up.
“Plaintiff ‘undertook an investigation’ because it obviously was not relying upon any representation as to the number of units had been provided by the Defendants; that uncertainty was his reason for hiring [its planner].”
In 101 Hudson Properties v. Birch Real Estate Services, D’Elia dismissed the buyer’s contract claim against Birch with prejudice. He read the agreement’s remedies clause to limit the buyer to return of its deposit because Birch had not yet closed on the underlying property when the buyer declared default.
“I will not rewrite the contract. On that basis alone I'm going to grant the motion to dismiss against Birch.”
In Sandoval v. Midland Funding, Delia dismissed the putative class claims as untimely. He held that class-action tolling ended when the federal court denied class certification, rather than at a later jurisdictional ruling in that case.
“It is well settled that tolling of class action claims ends when class certification is denied... this Court finds that Judge Wiggenton's July 7, 2021, decision denying class certification is a binding ruling.”
Procedural preferences
In 47 Mercer Street v. 78 Summit Avenue JC, D’Elia denied reinstatement of pleadings at the March 6 hearing after finding the revised discovery answers still incomplete. He rejected objections to written discovery raised after the time to object had passed; earlier case-management orders in this litigation came from other judges.
“[t]he time to object to the written discovery is long gone.”
In Seopersad v. Fulger’s Golden Beer & Liquors, D’Elia granted a directed verdict for the store and property owner before the remaining codefendant had finished presenting evidence. The appellate court affirmed because no later evidence implicated those two defendants, while noting that the motion had been decided before the codefendant rested.
“However, the judge ruled the motion timely and granted it.”
Cautions
Two of his more novel statutory-interpretation and municipal-land-use rulings were reversed on appeal: a railroad-immunity summary judgment for a light-rail operator in a fatal pedestrian-crossing case, and a ruling that a mandatory cannabis pre-screening board was not itself a land-use "municipal agency" for zoning-freeze purposes.
“We conclude the word ‘property’ as used in N.J.S.A. 48:12-152(b)(5) applies to the tangible property specifically described in N.J.S.A. 48:12-152(b)... and does not include the crossing.”
In Barone v. AAA Insurance, Delia granted CSAA's unopposed summary-judgment motion on its counterclaim by adopting the motion's factual and legal conclusions. The Appellate Division reversed that ruling because the court had not made its own findings.
“the court's oral decision stated the motion was unopposed ‘on all counts,’ and adopted the ‘legal reasoning and the factual conclusions’ detailed in the motion... This is insufficient.”
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“Pending before this Court is Defendants CBRE, Inc., Charles Berger and Elli Klapper (Defendants) Motion for Summary Judgment seeking dismissal of Plaintiff's Amended Complaint in its entirety, with prejudice. ... Therefore, the Court hereby grants Defendant's motion to dismiss Plaintiffs Complaint in its entirety, with prejudice.”
“For the above reasons, the Plaintiff's putative class claims are dismissed by application of the statute of limitations, but Plaintiffs' individual claims will not be dismissed.”
“On March 21, 2024, the court granted defendant's motion to dismiss, ‘for the various reasons expressed’ in other cases presenting the same allegations as in plaintiff's complaint.”
“After hearing argument, the court denied the motions in two orders dated November 18, 2021... giving the parties the opportunity to conduct ‘limited discovery... on the issues raised in the motion[s].’”
“After hearing argument, the court granted the motion and dismissed the complaint ‘without prejudice pending the results of the Appellate Division.’”
“The court denied the motion and dismissed the case with prejudice, explaining: ‘I only dismissed it without prejudice because I was waiting to see if the Appellate Division would address whether it should have been raised in the first instance.’”
“the court subsequently granted the motion without prejudice, stating the court would ‘give... plaintiff an opportunity to file an amended complaint to further clarify the claims.’”
“I'm granting the motion to dismiss based upon a plain reading of [the] contract language [of Section] 13.1. I will not rewrite the contract... Therefore, I'm dismissing the complaint against Birch.”
“After oral arguments on the motions, the court denied reconsideration and a stay.”
“The court granted Birch's motion for attorney's fees but did not set an amount of fees, permitting the parties to resolve the issue themselves.”
“After arguments, the court reconsidered and vacated the prior order, dismissing the complaint against Old Republic with prejudice, for the same reasons that it granted Birch's motion -- that plaintiff terminated the [] contract when it took back its deposit monies.”
“the court found that Old Republic was not entitled to an award of attorney's fees and costs as a prevailing party... it was inequitable for Old Republic to now assert that Section 18.2 was also applicable to it.”
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