Appellant, an inmate at the New Jersey State Prison, challenged the final decision of the Department of Corrections (DOC), which reiterated DOC's informal policy (the calling policy) prohibiting inmates from making phone calls to cell phones and "non-traditional telephone service numbers." He asserted the calling policy violated the United States Constitution and DOC's informal implementation of the calling violated the Administrative Procedures Act, N.J.S.A. 52:14B-1 to -31 (the APA).
The court concluded DOC's adoption and implementation of the calling policy violated the rulemaking procedures required by the APA. The court recognized the likely disruption that immediate invalidation of the policy would cause, and left the policy in place, pending DOC's commencement of rulemaking without delay.