How the Supreme Court’s Ruling on a Retracted Work Promise ‘Impacts All Employers in New Jersey’

Sills Cummis' Peter Verniero was asked about a New Jersey Supreme Court Ruling earlier this year – Goldfarb v. Solimine – in which, according to the article, “the plaintiff claimed promissory estoppel after the defendant backed out of a verbal contract to hire him as a financial adviser to handle his family’s extensive investment portfolio.”

According to the article, “Peter Verniero, a partner at Sills Cummis & Gross in Newark, said the majority ‘carefully describes and distinguishes two types of claims—breach of contract and promissory estoppel—and two types of damages flowing respectively from those claims—benefit-of-the-bargain damages and reliance damages.’

“‘Although the court ruled within the context of the Uniform Securities Law, I can envision the court’s teachings to apply in other settings,’ said Verniero, a former associate justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court and state attorney general. ‘It would not surprise me if this decision were to serve as a tutorial on these types of claims and damages to guide both the bench and bar in future cases.’”