By Terrence T. McDonald | The Jersey Journal
JERSEY CITY — A Hudson County Superior Court judge last week ordered Jersey City to pay $95,850 to lawyers for Kushner Companies after the developers won a records dispute with the city in December.
The ruling is another setback for the city in its battle with Kushner Companies, the real estate firm run by the family of President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The two sides are clashing over the developers’ stalled One Journal Square project, a two-tower plan set for a long-vacant site near the Journal Square PATH station and transit hub.
Judge Francis B. Schultz said in his five-page order that the Kushner firm’s lawyers spent “a great deal of time” preparing for the case. The award represents 192 hours — 140 hours more than the city believed was reasonable — at $500 per hour.
“The court cannot find any item of time that is obviously excessive or unreasonable,” Schultz said in the April 29 order.
The firm and its partner, KABR Group, have a separate action pending in federal court, where they claim the city is blocking One Journal Square because of Fulop’s animus toward Trump, a claim Fulop, a Democrat, has denied. Fulop said last year he will not support a long-term tax abatement for the project, a decision that would deny the developers millions in city subsidies. The city has also said the developers are in breach of their redevelopment agreement with the city because construction on the project has not started yet.
