Jonathan Preziosi is a partner in the Newark office of Lewis Brisbois, a vice-chair of the Complex Business & Commercial Litigation Practice, and a member of the firm’s National Trial Team.

Mr. Preziosi litigates a wide variety of construction disputes involving such diverse projects as highway, transportation, and bridge construction; airport terminal construction; refinery and power plant projects; and Hudson River waterfront redevelopment sites. He also litigates a full range of commercial real estate matters, including complex title disputes; tax appeals involving commercial, industrial, and tax-exempt properties; suits to compel closing of commercial real estate deals and actions in lieu of prerogative writs defending or challenging zoning board and planning board land use decisions.

Mr. Preziosi has also litigated a variety of environmental cases in state and federal court, including NJDEP cost recovery actions against alleged Spill Act violators, defense of institutional clients alleged to be the source of hazardous substances hauled to municipal landfills, and private party claims alleging diminution of property value due to the presence of soil or water contamination.

His practice also includes representation of not just construction clients but also businesses in all sectors in contract disputes, unfair business competition claims, and preliminary and final injunction hearings.

Some specific examples of Mr. Preziosi’s work include:

• Winning an 8-day injunction hearing and obtaining an order that permitted his client to proceed with the $80 million sale of its affiliated healthcare companies.
• Serving as lead counsel in obtaining a binding arbitration award of more than $12 million for an industrial contractor that sued for payment after erecting the structural steel and installing the mechanical equipment for a power plant project in New Jersey. The award included compensation for extra work and constructive acceleration damages.
• Successfully representing an industrial electrical contractor in recovering $4 million in loss of productivity damages arising from an airport terminal modification project.
• Serving as lead trial counsel in defeating a subcontractor’s claim against a construction manager client for several million dollars of alleged delay and loss of productivity damages.
• Successfully representing an industrial contractor in recovering $2.375 million in extra work (Field Change Authorization) claims at a New Jersey oil refinery project.

• Winning an injunction that prevented a municipality from shutting down a client’s industrial pipe distribution facility when, after six years of operation by the client at the site, the municipality changed interpretations of its zoning ordinance.
• Winning an injunction against enforcement of an ordinance in the Town of West New York that would have required restaurants in the Controlled Waterfront Development District to close by 12:00 midnight.
• Successfully defending Educational Testing Service (ETS) in an arbitration where a contractor made 25 extra work claims against ETS with respect to a water system modification project.
• Successfully representing the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority in recovering the costs required to replace a defective roof installed on the Meadowlands Continental Arena.
• Representing general contractors and sub-contractors in multimillion-dollar constructive change and delay claims against bi-state agencies, such as the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
• Representing the insureds of title insurance companies in establishing priority of commercial real estate mortgages, defending against claims of adverse possession and easement extinguishment and otherwise quieting title for insured lenders and owners.
• Successfully defending a family trust against a developer alleging that the trust had concealed lead contamination in the soil of a historic Princeton property that the trust had sold to the developer.
• Successfully representing and obtaining the complete dismissal of the New Jersey Highway Authority in a multi-fatality case where the design of the Garden State Parkway was alleged to have been the cause of an accident.
• Obtaining summary judgment and dismissal of the plaintiff’s claims against an engineering firm client whose services were alleged to have caused a severe head/facial injury at a New Jersey oil refinery project.
• Successfully representing and obtaining complete the dismissal of the New Jersey Highway Authority in a drowning case where the condition of the Highway Authority’s property at the intersection of the Garden State Parkway and a chemical plant was alleged to have been the cause of an accident.

Admissions

• State Bar Admissions
  • New Jersey
• United States Courts of Appeals
  • United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit

Admissions

New Jersey

U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Education

Seton Hall Law School

Juris Doctor, 1991

• Associate Editor, Seton Hall Law Review

Washington and Lee University

Bachelor of Science, 1988