TOMS RIVER, N.J. — A small jeweler inside the Ocean County Mall sued Johnson Controls in Ocean County Superior Court for a burglary loss. The case has some interesting issues and I was curious if the judge was correct in his acceptance and reliance on certain facts. Alarm experts will know the answer.
The system was contracted to be a UL Certified Burglar Alarm system.
The judge accepted as fact that the UL certified system “required to include line security (“Line Security”). “Line security requires that the lines of communication between an alarm system and the remote monitoring station be tested automatically at periodic intervals no greater than 360 seconds.” Is this in fact a UL requirement? I did my own calculation and that comes to every 6 minutes.
Another fact accepted by the judge was if “there has been an interruption in or compromise of the lines of communication, then there is automatic notification of this interruption to the alarm monitoring station, which is then required to relay such notification to law enforcement, thus triggering a law enforcement response.”
So communication failure would trigger a dispatch, not simply notification to the subscriber. Is this accurate?
In this case, the alarm at Venzio Jewelers was set up to test every 24 hours. Burglars accessed the protected premises via an adjoining premises through a common wall, cut the alarm wires and disable the alarm and cleaned the jewelry store out.
The jeweler’s insurance company brought the subrogation case to recoup the just under $1 million if it paid out.
Why Did Judge Dismiss Fraud Case vs. Johnson Controls?
The Plaintiff’s case, brought in New Jersey, claimed fraud [that Johnson knew the alarm didn’t test every 360 seconds and also under New Jersey’s infamous Consumer Fraud Act, New Jersey Statutes Annotated § 56:8-19 (“NJCFA”)].
The judge decided to address the fraud claim and the consumer fraud claim. From my perspective, the judge could have decided this case quickly without all the analysis because, as the judge also found, the alarm contract had a valid and enforceable waiver of subrogation clause tied into an insurance provision.
In any event, the case is instructive and worth your time reading it, especially if you’re in New Jersey and have to deal with the consumer fraud act issues.
