Allen J. Satz v. Ava Satz

• Court: New Jersey Superior Court Appellate Division
• Decided: March 25, 2026
• Docket: A-2764-24
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE APPELLATE DIVISION This opinion shall not "constitute precedent or be binding upon any court ."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-2764-24

ALLEN J. SATZ,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

AVA SATZ,

Defendant-Respondent. ___________________________

Submitted December 16, 2025 – Decided March 25, 2026

Before Judges Susswein and Augostini.

On appeal from the Superior Court of New Jersey, Bergen County, Law Division, Docket No. L-0979-25.

Allen J. Satz, self-represented appellant.

Respondent has not filed a brief.

PER CURIAM

In this post-matrimonial litigation, plaintiff Allen J. Satz appeals the April

25, 2025 Law Division order dismissing his amended complaint. After

reviewing the record in light of the governing legal principles, we affirm. The long history of litigation between the parties is recounted in our prior

published opinion, Satz v. Satz, 476 N.J. Super. 536, 543-48 (App. Div. 2023).

Accordingly, we presume the parties are familiar with the pertinent facts and

procedural history leading to this latest appeal, which need only be briefly

summarized. Plaintiff and defendant were married in 2006 and separated in

2018. In 2020, the parties executed a Marital Settlement Agreement that

provided that the issue of the parties' get (a Jewish divorce) would be submitted

to a beis din1 for arbitration and that the parties would abide by the arbitration

decision. In 2022, a beis din directed plaintiff to give defendant a get.

Plaintiff persisted in refusing to abide by the beis din ruling, whereupon

the beis din encouraged the Jewish community to demonstrate against plaintiff

and publicize his behavior so as to induce him to give defendant a get. Plaintiff

alleges that as part of this campaign, defendant made false statements about him

and took a picture of plaintiff during a Zoom meeting and published it online.

In 2023, plaintiff filed an action against defendant (the 2023 action)

seeking an order to show cause and requesting, among other relief, that the court

order (1) the beis din to halt all protests and the alleged defamation of plaintiff

1 A beis din is a rabbinical court that resolves marital issues according to Jewish law. A-2764-24 2 and (2) defendant to remove the Zoom photo of plaintiff from social media or

any other public places. Plaintiff alleged that the publication of the Zoom

picture constituted invasion of privacy, false light, and defamation. Defendant

moved to dismiss the 2023 action. On January 17, 2024, the trial court denied

plaintiff's order to show cause and granted defendant's motion.

On February 3, 2025, plaintiff filed the present complaint (the 2025

action), again seeking an order to show cause and requesting that the court order

defendant to remove the Zoom picture from all public places. On February 10,

the trial court denied that request. On March 13, plaintiff filed an amended

complaint that included various allegations related to the beis din's decision,

statements made about plaintiff's refusal to give defendant a get, and the

publication of the Zoom picture. On March 20, defendant moved to dismiss

plaintiff's amended complaint, and on March 24, plaintiff filed opposition to the

motion to dismiss.

On April 25, the trial court held oral argument and subsequently dismissed

plaintiff's amended complaint, rendering an oral decision. Specifically, the

court found that plaintiff's amended complaint failed to state defined causes of

action and was barred by the Entire Controversy Doctrine (ECD).

A-2764-24 3 This appeal follows. Plaintiff contends that the trial judge erred in the

application of the law and showed bias toward the defendant.

Applying de novo review, see Baskin v. P.C. Richard & Son, LLC, 246

N.J. 157, 171 (2021), we agree that plaintiff's amended complaint in the 2025

action was barred by the ECD because it was based on the same transactional

facts as his complaint in the 2023 action.

The ECD is codified in Rule 4:30A, which reads: "Non-joinder of claims

required to be joined by the [ECD] shall result in the preclusion of the omitted

claims to the extent required by the [ECD] . . . ." In determining whether claims

are required to be joined in the same action, our initial inquiry is whether they

"arise from related facts or the same transaction or series of transactions. "

Dimitrakopoulos v. Borrus, Goldin, Foley, Vignuolo, Hyman and Stahl, P.C.,

237 N.J. 91, 109 (2019) (citing DiTrolio v. Antiles, 142 N.J. 253, 267 (1995)).

The claims need not have common legal issues for the ECD to bar the subsequent

claim. Ibid. "[T]he determinative consideration is whether distinct claims are

aspects of a single larger controversy because they arise from interrelated facts."

DiTrolio, 142 N.J. at 271.

Plaintiff argues that the ECD does not apply because his 2025 complaint

states new causes of action—invasion of privacy and false light—whereas the

A-2764-24 4 2023 action was for defamation. That contention is belied by the record, which

shows that the 2023 action raised issues of invasion of privacy, false light, and

defamation. We reiterate, moreover, that for ECD purposes, "the determinative

consideration is whether distinct claims are aspects of a single larger

controversy because they arise from interrelated facts." DiTrolio, 142 N.J. at

271 (emphasis added).

Here, plaintiff's claims in the 2025 action arise from the same facts—the

beis din's decision and defendant's alleged publication of a Zoom picture of

him—as the claims in the 2023 action. We thus conclude that the ECD applies.

We need only briefly address plaintiff's contention that the trial judge was

biased in favor of defendant. Plaintiff's argument is largely a recapitulation of

his challenge to the merits of the trial court's decision. Cf. State v. Marshall,

148 N.J. 89, 186 (1997) ("[B]ias is not established by the fact that a litigant is

disappointed in a court's ruling on an issue."). Nothing in the record before us

remotely suggests judicial bias.

To the extent we have not specifically addressed them, any remaining

arguments raised by plaintiff lack sufficient merit to warrant discussion. R.

2:11-3(e)(1)(E).

Affirmed.

A-2764-24 5