Boldt v. Correspondence Management, Inc

Boldt v. Correspondence Management, Inc., 320 N.J. Super. 74, 83, 726 A.2d 975 (App.Div.1999) was a class-action suit in which we took the same approach. The class-action plaintiffs in that case sought to recover overcharges by physicians and by medical facilities for providing copies of medical records. 320 N.J. Super. at 77-78, 726 A.2d 975. They also sought injunctions and damages under the Consumer Fraud Act. There were regulations for the copying fees which physicians and medical institutions could charge. The Court found that the physicians' facial violation of the $ 1-per-page limit which the regulations set on charges by physicians did not raise any issue of how to interpret the regulations, so the plaintiffs could proceed with their claims against the physicians in court without exhausting their administrative remedies, and we reversed the dismissal of the complaint. Id. at 79-81, 726 A.2d 975. However, the regulations allowed medical institutions to charge a copying fee "based on actual costs," id. at 81, 726 A.2d 975, which implicated both "the complexities of hospital cost structures" which required agency expertise to understand, as well as the uniformity of "definition and application," an issue only an agency determination could answer. Id. at 86-88, 726 A.2d 975. The Court concluded the interests of justice required referral of the question of the medical institutions' costs to the agency under the primary jurisdiction doctrine, with the trial court to apply the agency's findings to the plaintiffs' overcharge claims. Id. at 87-88, 726 A.2d 975. In Boldt, while the agency had primary jurisdiction to determine whether the medical institutions had in fact overcharged, it did not have the authority to award damages for overcharging. There was no indication that the Legislature intended to divest the plaintiffs of the right to such common-law damages. 320 N.J. Super. at 87-88, 726 A.2d 975. For that reason, the agency could not be regarded as having exclusive jurisdiction; instead, the trial court would take the agency's findings on "actual costs" and use them in determining damages. Id. at 88, 726 A.2d 975.