IN THE MATTER OF W.L.(C-000012-16, ESSEX COUNTY AND STATEWIDE) ( 2017 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE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-0455-16T4
IN THE MATTER OF W.L.
_________________________
Submitted September 20, 2017 – Decided October 2, 2017
Before Judges Haas and Rothstadt.
On appeal from Superior Court of New Jersey,
Chancery Division, Essex County, Docket No.
C-000012-16.
Kunal Sharma, attorney for appellant W.L.
Christopher S. Porrino, Attorney General,
attorney for respondent New Jersey Department
of Corrections (Melissa H. Raksa, Assistant
Attorney General, of counsel; Nicole E. Adams,
Deputy Attorney General, on the brief).
PER CURIAM
Defendant W.L., an inmate at Northern State Prison (NSP),1
engaged in a months-long hunger strike that placed his health and
life in imminent danger. Defendant appeals from the January 21,
2016 and March 18, 2016 orders of the Chancery Division, granting
a preliminary injunction to the Department of Corrections that
1
Defendant's maximum release date is December 28, 2017.
permitted the Department's medical personnel to provide
involuntary medical treatment and nutrition to defendant.
Defendant also appeals from an August 15, 2016 order dismissing
his counterclaim with prejudice for failure to state a claim upon
which relief may be granted. R. 4:6-2(e). We affirm in part,
reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings.
Prior to transferring defendant to NSP in December 2014, the
Department housed defendant at New Jersey State Prison (NJSP).
While at NJSP, defendant went on a prolonged hunger strike between
March 2012 and March 2013, which caused him to lose approximately
100 pounds from his 260-pound frame. Defendant refused to
regularly eat or take fluids because he said he was upset with a
disciplinary charge he received that resulted in his placement in
administrative segregation for a lengthy period of time.
Defendant was not happy with his transfer to NSP. In the
months that followed, the Department advised defendant that he
would soon be placed in a double cell with another inmate.
Defendant asserted that he had not yet successfully transitioned
from living in segregation to living in the general prison
population, and that placing him with another inmate would
adversely affect his physical and mental health.
Based on these complaints, defendant began a second hunger
strike in July 2015 and again refused to regularly consume food
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or fluids. As a result, defendant's health rapidly deteriorated.
Defendant also refused to cooperate with medical staff who were
attempting to monitor his vital signs. The uncontradicted medical
evidence in the record reveals that by January 2016, when the
Department sought the preliminary injunction, defendant had
already suffered tissue and cardiac muscle destruction, and severe
malnutrition. The Department's medical director opined that
defendant was in danger of dying if the Department was not
permitted to provide life-saving treatment to him.
On January 7, 2016, the Department filed a verified complaint
and an order to show cause seeking a preliminary injunction
permitting it to provide treatment to defendant. Following oral
argument, the trial judge entered a temporary injunction
permitting the Department to monitor defendant's vital signs,
perform lab tests, and feed defendant "via intravenous hydration
and a Naso-Gastric" tube if he refused to voluntarily take
nutrition pending the return date.
Following a hearing, the judge entered a second order on
March 18, 2016, granting a preliminary injunction to the
Department. The order permitted the Department to provide
involuntary medical treatment and nutrition to defendant if he
refused, and to "employ reasonable force in order to conduct lab
tests to obtain blood and urine samples" from defendant and to
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give him intravenous hydration and nutrition. The judge found
that the preliminary injunction was "necessary to avoid serious
bodily damage and/or death."
Together with his answer to the Department's complaint,
defendant filed a four-count counterclaim. Among other things,
defendant asserted that the Department violated his Eighth
Amendment protections against cruel and unusual punishment by
keeping him in isolation and then attempting to place him in the
general prison population without adequate transitional care.
Defendant also alleged that the Department deprived him of due
process, and infringed his First Amendment right to engage in
political protest by taking retaliatory action against him as a
result of his hunger strikes.
The Department filed a motion to dismiss defendant's
counterclaim. On August 15, 2016, the judge granted the
Department's motion and dismissed defendant's claims with
prejudice. This appeal followed. On appeal, defendant argues
that the trial judge erred by granting the Department the
preliminary injunction and dismissing his counterclaim with
prejudice.
At the outset, we recognize that the three orders listed in
defendant's amended notice of appeal are interlocutory because the
trial judge never conducted a final hearing to determine whether
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the restraints ordered on January 21, and March 18, 2016 should
be permanent or were no longer necessary. Thus, the judge did not
issue a final, appealable judgment in this case. See Smith v.
Jersey Cent. Power & Light Co., 421 N.J. Super. 374, 383 (App.
Div.) (holding that in order for a "judgment to be final and
therefore appealable as of right, it must dispose of all claims
against all parties") (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted), certif. denied, 209 N.J. 96 (2011).
"Ordinarily, appellate courts seek to avoid 'piecemeal
litigation' and the 'premature review of matters.'" House of Fire
v. Zoning Bd., 379 N.J. Super. 526, 531 (App. Div. 2005) (quoting
Moon v. Warren Haven Nursing Home, 182 N.J. 507, 513 (2005)).
Thus, this appeal is subject to dismissal. Nevertheless, in an
effort to facilitate a fair and final resolution, we will address
the disputed issues. See R. 2:4-4(b)(2) (permitting us to grant
leave to appeal as within time).
"Because the grant of a preliminary injunction typically
involves a delicate balance of equities, the scope of . . . review
of such determinations is narrow. A trial court's decision to
issue a preliminary injunction will not be disturbed on appeal
unless it results from an abuse of discretion." Nat'l Starch &
Chem. Corp. v. Parker Chem. Corp., 219 N.J. Super. 158, 162 (App.
Div. 1987) (citation omitted).
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Applying this deferential standard, we discern no basis for
disturbing the trial judge's decision to grant the Department a
preliminary injunction to enable it to save defendant's life. We
affirm substantially for the reasons set forth in the judge's oral
opinions of January 21, and March 17, 2016.
In rendering his thoughtful decisions, the judge carefully
applied the well-settled test of Crowe v. De Gioia, 90 N.J. 126,
132-34 (1982), and made specific findings concerning each of the
Crowe factors. The judge found that defendant's life was in
imminent danger; his heart was "racing" and "skipping beats"; and
he was in "a severe malnourished state." Unless given nutrition
and hydration, defendant was at "serious risk of irreversible
organ damage, [which] may have already occurred, heart attack,
organ failure, brain damage, muscle breakdown, along with kidney
and liver failure, or death." The judge further found that the
Department's established duty to protect inmates, coupled with its
and the public's strong interest in preserving the lives of inmates
in the Department's custody, outweighed defendant's interest in
protesting the conditions of his confinement.
On this record, the judge's findings and conclusions are
unassailable and, therefore, we affirm the January 21, and March
18, 2016 orders. As noted above, however, we are required to
remand this matter to the trial court for a final hearing to
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determine whether the restraints issued in those orders should be
made permanent or dissolved, and for the entry of a final judgment.
We are also constrained to reverse the trial judge's decision
to dismiss defendant's counterclaim with prejudice. We review
a grant of a motion to dismiss a pleading for failure to state a
cause of action de novo, applying the same standard under Rule
4:6-2(e) that governed the motion court. See Frederick v. Smith,
416 N.J. Super. 594, 597 (App. Div. 2010), certif. denied, 205
N.J. 317 (2011). Such review "is limited to examining the legal
sufficiency of the facts alleged on the face of the [pleading],"
and, in determining whether dismissal under Rule 4:6-2(e) is
warranted, the court should not concern itself with the party's
ability to prove his or her allegations. Printing Mart-Morristown
v. Sharp Elecs. Corp., 116 N.J. 739, 746 (1989). If "the fundament
of a cause of action may be gleaned even from an obscure statement
of claim," then the pleading should survive this preliminary stage.
Craig v. Suburban Cablevision, Inc., 140 N.J. 623, 626 (1995)
(citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
A trial court should grant the dismissal "in only the rarest
of instances." Printing Mart, supra, 116 N.J. at 772. Ordinarily,
such motions are granted without prejudice. Smith v. SBC Commc'ns
Inc., 178 N.J. 265, 282 (2004).
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Here, the judge found that the primary defect in defendant's
counterclaim was his failure to assert sufficient facts to support
his claim that the Department violated his constitutional rights.
For example, the judge found that defendant's Eighth Amendment
claims were deficient because defendant "failed to plead any facts
that suggest[ed] deliberate indifference" on the Department's part
to defendant's complaints about being moved from isolation to a
double-lock cell. The judge also noted that defendant did not
allege that the Department "committed specific harms" in
connection with this housing arrangement.
With regard to defendant's argument that the Department did
not provide him with due process concerning its housing and medical
treatment decisions, the judge found that defendant failed to
"allege how the transfer between administrative segregation . . .
to general population and/or the infirmary impose[d] an atypical
or significant hardship for him[.]" The judge also found that
defendant's First Amendment arguments were wanting because the
counterclaim only contained a one-sentence allegation that the
Department violated his "rights to free speech of a political
nature by threatening to end [the] hunger strike by extraordinarily
and predictably painful and obtrusive means of force feeding."
Thus, defendant may well have been able to file an amended
counterclaim that alleged sufficient facts to correct the
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deficiencies the judge found in his initial pleading. However,
the judge dismissed the counterclaim with prejudice without giving
defendant an opportunity to amend it.
Considering the matter de novo, we conclude that the dismissal
should have been without prejudice, especially because the judge
found that defendant alleged insufficient facts in the pleading.
We therefore reverse the portion of the August 15, 2016 order
dismissing defendant's counterclaim with prejudice, and remand to
allow him an opportunity to file an amended counterclaim.
Affirmed in part; reversed in part; and remanded. We do not
retain jurisdiction.
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