Derrick R. Freijomil is a Partner in the Firm’s Litigation Department.
He is an experienced commercial litigation and trial attorney who has practiced in state and federal courts at both the trial and appellate levels, as well as in arbitrations. While his practice focuses in New Jersey and New York, he has handled matters in various jurisdictions throughout the United States, including national litigations and putative class actions.
Derrick has significant experience handling a variety of commercial disputes, whether by direct engagement or as counsel assigned by insurers, including matters involving tens of millions of dollars and upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars in dispute. He has represented owners, lenders, and financial institutions in disputes involving loan workouts and claims as to title and boundary lines, mortgage fraud, lender liability, fraud and fraudulent transfers, foreclosures, and evictions. He has defended numerous title insurers and title agents against various individual and putative class action claims, including under New Jersey’s Consumer Fraud Act, and title insurance coverage matters, ranging from hundreds of thousands of dollars to close to two hundred million dollars of coverage at issue.
Derrick has litigated shareholder disputes, including those in closely-held and family-owned companies, and has also litigated disputes over large real estate development and land use transactions in New Jersey. He has handled a wide variety of construction defect cases, ranging from smaller to large, multi-unit projects with dozens of trades involved. He has defended national real estate and solar panel companies against various consumer, contract, quasi-contract, and tort claims throughout New Jersey and New York. He has defended hotels, as well as handled franchise and branding matters involving national hotel chains. He has litigated a wide array of contract and fraud matters, including vendor and franchise disputes, sophisticated accounting fraud and embezzlement, and enforcement of restrictive employment covenants protecting trade secrets and confidential information. His practice has also included years litigating products liability and toxic tort matters, such as pharmaceutical, medical device and supplies, asbestos, and chemical exposure cases.
Some of his litigations include:
- Defending insurer in successfully defeating putative class action seeking over $150 million
- Defending putative class action and obtaining early dismissal leading to favorable settlement for manufacturing client
- Obtaining dismissal of contract-based action and obtaining and enforcing sanctions judgment against foreign entity
- Defeating Order to Show Cause and simultaneously dismissing complaint and discharging Notice of Lis Pendens concerning property valued over $24 million
- Thwarting Order to Show Cause for national real estate company that led to dismissal of action
- Successfully defending Order to Show Cause on behalf of national retailer, resulting in dismissal of all claims
- Vigorously prosecuting oppressed shareholder and related claims to obtain favorable settlement over $1.3 million
- Obtaining multimillion dollar verdict following a 31-day trial over real estate development and management
- Securing trial judgment finding bank’s million dollar mortgage valid and in priority over invalid mortgage of other lender and having same affirmed on appeal
- Negotiating multimillion dollar note reduction after multi-year litigations over hotel and lending disputes
- Achieving almost $85 million settlement for the New Jersey pension funds in securities litigation
Serving as national counsel for a pharmaceutical manufacturer in over 1,300 product liability cases throughout the country and before the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation, preventing any judgments, JPML consolidations, or class certifications
Derrick’s practice includes advising and defending municipalities. He is counsel to the Warren Township Sewerage Authority and the Township of Montclair, and he also successfully defended the Montclair Board of School Estimate and certain of its members against conflict claims, getting all claims dismissed with prejudice.
He has represented the Township of Parsippany-Troy Hills and the City of Plainfield, as well as its departments and individual representatives, on a variety of matters, including as to contract, warranty, tort, Section 1983, New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, and employment discrimination claims and investigations.
Results may vary depending on your particular facts and legal circumstances.
Derrick has been involved in municipal government matters since 2005, having served on the Capital Finance Committee for the Township of Montclair for two years and having sat on the Planning Board for the Township of Warren for seven years. He is also a New Jersey Planning Officials member. He was a member of the Warren Township Republican Municipal Committee for 12 years, chair for 5 years, and was President of the Warren Township Republic Club for 5 years.
While pursuing his law degree, Derrick was Editor-in-Chief of the Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal and is a former law clerk for the Honorable James J. Petrella, Presiding Judge, Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division. He was involved in The Arthur T. Vanderbilt Inn of Court both as a Pupil and a Barrister.
He is a contributing author to the Chapter on Trials in American College of Trial Lawyers (Complex Litigation Committee) and Mass Tort Manual (2006), and he co-authored “Timely Notice of Removal to Federal Court in Cases with Multiple Defendants,” International Law Office, (USA) Products Liability Section (Aug. 21, 2003).
