Noel Lawrence Hillman
How Judge Hillman decides
Patterns drawn from this judge's own signed orders. Every observation links to the order it came from.
What persuades
On the recurring NJ Charitable Immunities Act question for federally qualified health centers, reads 'organized exclusively for hospital purposes' broadly (per Kuchera) so the $250,000 damages cap -- not absolute immunity -- governs an FTCA malpractice claim, and expressly aligns with sibling D.N.J. judges who reached the same result on the same FQHC.
“The Court holds that these medical and health-related pursuits support a conclusion that CAMcare is organized exclusively for hospital purposes under the NJCIA. ... the Court holds that the NJCIA damages cap applies.”
Procedural preferences
In first-party insurance suits, follows the prevailing NJ state-and-federal practice of severing and staying bad-faith (and Consumer Fraud Act) claims from the underlying coverage/UIM contract claim, to spare the insurer premature production of its claim file and avoid prejudice -- using Rule 42(b) bifurcation (one action, two phases), not Rule 21 severance (which would create two separate actions).
“The Court concludes that the interests of judicial economy, as well as the avoidance of prejudice to Geico, weigh in favor of severing Counts 2 and 3 ... from Count 1.”
Cautions
Reconsideration is confined to the three traditional grounds (intervening change in controlling law, newly available evidence, or clear error/manifest injustice) and may not be used to relitigate decided matters or raise arguments that could have been made earlier; mere disagreement does not suffice.
“A motion for reconsideration may not be used to re-litigate old matters or argue new matters that could have been raised before the original decision was reached ... mere disagreement with the Court will not suffice”
Motion outcomes
Counted from classified signed orders only. Percentages are shown only where the sample is large enough to be meaningful; smaller samples are reported as raw counts.
| Motions to dismiss N = 2 |
Granted in part: 1Denied: 1 | counts only |
| Summary judgment N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Motion to sever N = 1 |
Granted: 1 | counts only |
| Motion for reconsideration N = 1 |
Denied: 1 | counts only |
A "1 of 1" is one ruling, not a tendency. Treat small samples as illustrative, not predictive.
Signed rulings
A grounded sample of orders signed by this judge, with the verbatim dispositive language.
“the jurisdictional motion will be denied; and the Rule 12(b)(6) motion will be denied as to Count 2 (bad faith), and granted as to Count 3 (the New Jersey statutory consumer fraud claim). However, Abiona will be given an opportunity to attempt to cure the pleading deficiencies of Count 3.”
“Geico's Motion to Stay and Sever Counts 2 and 3 pending resolution of Count 1 will be granted.”
“the United States' motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction will be denied”
“the motion for partial summary judgment will be granted.”
“For the reasons stated above, the Court will deny the Motion for Reconsideration.”