SUPERIOR COURT OF NEW JERSEY

APPELLATE DIVISION

DOCKET NO. A-0455-16T4

IN THE MATTER OF W.L.

_________________________

Submitted September 20, 2017 – Decided

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.

NOT FOR PUBLICATION WITHOUT THE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.

October 2, 2017
2 A-0455-16T4

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 
3 A-0455-16T4

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 
4 A-0455-16T4

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 
5 A-0455-16T4

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).
6 A-0455-16T4

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 
7 A-0455-16T4

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). 
8 A-0455-16T4

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 
9 A-0455-16T4

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.