JAMES BLESSING VS. NICK HOFFMAN (L-1762-20, UNION COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) ( 2021 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE
APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION
This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court ." Although it is posted on the
internet, this opinion is binding only on the parties in the case and its use in other cases is limited. R. 1:36-3.
SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY
APPELLATE DIVISION
DOCKET NO. A-0416-20
JAMES BLESSING,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
NICK HOFFMAN, OLIVIA
MARR, and PAGE
PUBLISHING, INC.,
Defendants-Respondents.
___________________________
Submitted April 21, 2021 – Decided June 10, 2021
Before Judges Sumners and Geiger.
On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Law
Division, Union County, Docket No. L-1762-20.
James Blessing, appellant pro se.
Scott K. Seelagy, attorney for respondents.
PER CURIAM
Plaintiff James Blessing 1 appeals from an August 7, 2020 order
compelling arbitration and staying his complaint against defendants Nick
Hoffman, Olivia Marr, and Page Publishing, Inc., and a September 11, 2020
order denying reconsideration. We affirm.
In June 2017, plaintiff and Page Publishing entered into a publishing
agreement (agreement), in which Page Publishing agreed to provide services to
publish plaintiff's written work Our Best Friend, later changed to From Here To
Everlasting. The agreement covered a two-year term, "after which time
[plaintiff] may, upon execution of a [r]enewal [a]greement at least sixty [] days
prior to the second anniversary of this [a]greement, renew this [a]greement for
an additional two [-] year term at [his] option" at a cost of $48. The agreement
contained an arbitration clause providing:
Any dispute, controversy, or claim between [Page
Publishing] and [plaintiff] regarding this [a]greement
will be submitted to mandatory and binding arbitration
under the terms of the rules of the American Arbitration
Association [AAA] as then in effect. All claims must
be brought in the party's individual capacity and not as
a class member in any purported class or representative
proceeding. Arbitration proceedings shall be heard in
New York County, New York by a single arbitrator
serving at the mutual designation of the parties and each
1
Plaintiff is in the process of legally changing his name and has requested to
be addressed as James Blessing. At the time of the agreement relevant to this
complaint, plaintiff went by Drew Bradford and signed the agreement as such.
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party shall be solely responsible for their own attorney's
fees in connection with said arbitration. Any issue
concerning the applicability, interpretation, or
enforceability of these procedures, including any
contention that all or parts of these procedures are
invalid or unenforceable, will be governed by the
Federal Arbitration Act. No discovery will be
permitted in connection with the arbitration and all
aspects of the arbitration will be confidential. Any
arbitration award shall not include exemplary or
punitive damages. The arbitration award will be final
and binding on the parties and may be entered in any
court having jurisdiction. [Plaintiff] shall have three []
days from execution of this [a]greement to cancel for
any reason by providing written notice to [Page
Publishing] of [his] desire to cancel.
Although the agreement expired at the end of two years without an
executed renewal agreement, the parties conducted themselves as if the
agreement were renewed after plaintiff paid the $48 renewal fee.
On April 22, 2020, however, Hoffman, Page Publishing's executive vice
president, sent plaintiff a letter severing their contractual relationship and
returned plaintiff's renewal fee. Page Publishing maintained plaintiff repeatedly
harassed its staff with unprofessional phone calls and voicemail messages after
it had denied his requests to provide him with weekly sales reports and the right
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to directly communicate with Page Publishing's proprietary contacts who m the
company utilized to advertise, market, and distribute its clients' books. 2
That same day, plaintiff sent a letter to Page Publishing president Dustin
Roberts, renewing his request to speak directly with the company's proprietary
contacts in the publishing industry, including advertisers, distributors, and the
resellers of his book, entitled From Here to Everlasting. In the letter, plaintiff
acknowledged the mandatory arbitration clause in the agreement and consented
to arbitration but requested that it be held in New Jersey3 due to his alleged
disability.
Almost three weeks later, plaintiff filed a three-count Law Division
complaint against defendants alleging breach of contract, religious
discrimination under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, N.J.S.A.
10:5-12 to -50, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In lieu of filing
an answer, defendants filed a motion to stay the action and compel arbitration
2
While plaintiff denied making harassing phone calls, we note that the trial
judge instructed plaintiff and her staff that all communication from plaintiff
must be put in writing because of the numerous phone calls he was making to
her chambers. Similarly, plaintiff was directed by the Administrative Office of
the Courts that all his communications must be done in writing because of the
numerous phone messages he left on Appellate Division staff's voicemails.
3
Either Union County, Somerset County, or Morris County.
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under N.J.S.A. 2A:23B-6(a), -7(e) and -7(g), based on the agreement's
mandatory arbitration clause.
After conducting oral argument on August 7, the trial judge entered an
order to stay the action and compel arbitration of all claims in accordance with
the agreement. The judge indicated that plaintiff's first amended complaint,
which had been previously filed but not served on Page Publishing's counsel,
did not alter her reasoning because all of plaintiff's claims arose from the
agreement and were subject to arbitration. The amended complaint added counts
of negligent infliction of emotional distress and consumer fraud.
Plaintiff timely moved for reconsideration. The judge denied the motion
on the papers in a September 11 order. In her statement of reasons attached to
the order, the judge, applying the standards set forth in Rule 4:49-2, D'Atria v.
D'Atria, 242 N.J. Super 392, 401 (Ch. Div. 1990), and Cummings v. Bahr, 295
N.J. Super. 374, 384 (App. Div. 1996), reasoned that plaintiff "merely
reargue[d]" the same contentions she previously rejected and that the initial
decision "was not palpably incorrect, irrational or did not consider the evidence
presented." The judge further noted that plaintiff's amended complaint did not
alter her ruling. On October 16, the judge stayed her orders of August 7 and
September 11 pending appeal.
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In his appeal, plaintiff argues the judge erred because, since the parties
did not confirm their renewal agreement in writing, the arbitration clause does
not apply to his claims. In going to arbitration, he argues, he will suffer "a waste
of time"; it will cost him $15,000 in expenses for arbitration costs; and he will
have to forfeit his rights to punitive damages, which he could receive from his
religious discrimination and intentional infliction of emotional distress claims.
He further claims a Superior Court judge is "more qualified" to decide his case;
he does not know the rules of arbitration and "will likely lose" to defendants
who are represented by counsel familiar with the rules; there is no discovery in
arbitration; and he does not have a computer, which is needed in arbitration.
There is no merit to plaintiff's claims and we thus affirm substantially for
the reasons expressed by the judge in her cogent decisions granting defendants'
motion to stay. We add the following brief comments.
The Federal and New Jersey Arbitration Acts express a general policy
favoring arbitration. Atalese v. U.S. Legal Servs. Grp., L.P., 219 N.J. 430, 440
(2014); see also 9 U.S.C. §§ 1 to 16; N.J.S.A. 2A:23B-1 to - 36. An arbitration
agreement is governed by principles of contract law. In Kernahan v. Home
Warranty Adm'r of Fla., Inc., 236 N.J. 301, 319 (2019) (quoting Atalese, 219
N.J. at 442), our Supreme Court stated:
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In this state, when called on to enforce an arbitration
agreement, a court's initial inquiry must be — just as it
is for any other contract — whether the agreement to
arbitrate all, or any portion, of a dispute is "the product
of mutual assent, as determined under customary
principles of contract law."
The validity of an arbitration agreement is a question of law, which we
review de novo. Atalese, 219 N.J. at 445-46; Barr v. Bishop Rosen & Co., Inc.,
442 N.J. Super. 599, 605 (App. Div. 2015). When reviewing a motion to compel
arbitration, the court applies a two-prong inquiry: (1) whether there is a valid
and enforceable agreement to arbitrate disputes, and (2) whether the dispute falls
within the scope of the agreement. Martindale v. Sandvik, Inc., 173 N.J. 76, 86,
92 (2002).
"Under state law, 'if parties agree on essential terms and manifest an
intention to be bound by those terms, they have created an enforceable
contract.'" Flanzman v. Jenny Craig, Inc., 244 N.J. 119, 135 (2020) (quoting
Weichert Co. Realtors v. Ryan, 128 N.J. 427, 435 (1992)). "Simply put, without
an agreement to arbitrate, there can be no arbitration." MZM Constr. Co. v. N.J.
Bldg. Laborers Statewide Benefit Funds, 974 F.3d 386, 397 (3d Cir. 2020).
Whether the parties "clearly delegated" that threshold question about the
formation of the agreement to an arbitrator is to be determined by a judge
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applying the same "elements necessary for the formation of a contract under
state law." Morgan v. Sanford Brown Inst., 225 N.J. 289, 295 (2016).
Here, there was a meeting of the minds that, despite not formally
executing the renewal agreement, the parties' conduct indicated the agreement
was in fact renewed. See Wanaque Borough Sewerage Auth. v. Twp. of W.
Milford, 144 N.J. 564, 574 (1996) (contracts implied in fact for services are
inferred from the parties' conduct or from the surrounding circumstances).
Plaintiff paid the renewal fee and continued to request and receive Page
Publishing's services. Plaintiff acknowledged that the arbitration clause applied
when he sought that the arbitration be held in New Jersey rather than in New
York. There is no doubt that the terms, including the mandatory arbitration
clause set forth in the initial agreement, applied.
As for the denial of plaintiff's motion for reconsideration, we discern no
abuse of discretion by the trial judge. See Kornbleuth v. Westover, 241 N.J.
289, 301 (2020). The record supports the judge's finding that plaintiff did not
demonstrate that she "expressed [her] decision based upon a palpably incorrect
or irrational basis, or . . . either did not consider, or failed to appreciate the
significance of probative, competent evidence" introduced in the motion.
Cummings, 295 N.J. Super. at 384 (quoting D'Atria, 242 N.J. Super. at 401).
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Finally, we point out that on March 12, 2021, we granted plaintiff's motion
to supplement the record. However, none of those documents are relevant to the
disposition of this appeal.4
Accordingly, we vacate the October 16, 2020 order staying the August 7,
2020 and September 11, 2020 orders imposed by the trial judge pending
arbitration.
Affirmed.
4
In addition, we later denied another motion by plaintiff to supplement the
record, and our clerk's office returned additional submissions by plaintiff that
were submitted after his motions had been decided and the appeal was fully
briefed.
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