Beatie v. City of New York
| Decision Date | 02 September 1997 |
| Docket Number | No. 1151,D,1151 |
| Citation | 123 F.3d 707 |
| Parties | Russel H. BEATIE, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF NEW YORK; Rudolph Giuliani, Mayor, Mayor of the City of New York; Council of the City of New York, Defendants-Appellees. ocket 96-9131. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Russel H. Beatie, Jr., New York City (Craig M. Deitelzweig, New York City, of counsel), for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Cheryl Payer, New York City (Paul A. Crotty, Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, Stephen J. McGrath, Richard M. Weinberg, Deborah Rand, New York City, of counsel), for Defendants-Appellees.
Before: CARDAMONE, JACOBS and CABRANES, Circuit Judges.
Today, cigar makers cannot keep up with the demand for their product. William G. Flanagan, Cigar Madness, Forbes, April 21, 1997, at 134. Reasons advanced for this new-found popularity range from the attraction the politically incorrect cigar holds for those who dislike to run with the herd, to the role of the cigar as a status symbol, as telling as a cellular telephone. See JR Tobacco of America, Inc. v. Davidoff of Geneva, 957 F.Supp. 426, 428 (S.D.N.Y.1997). In the midst of this cigar-smoking renaissance, and after considerable public debate, the City of New York enacted its Smoke-Free Air Act (Act), one of the nation's toughest anti-smoking laws.
Plaintiff Russel H. Beatie, Jr. comes into this conflict like a modern-day Don Quixote, tilting at the windmills of the law. Unhappy with the Act's restrictions on his ability to enjoy a cigar with his meal whenever and wherever he pleased, plaintiff, an attorney and self-described cigar aficionado, brought this action in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Cote, J.), seeking a judgment declaring the ordinance unconstitutional as applied to cigars.
The essence of Beatie's argument is that although numerous studies show that exposure to secondary cigarette smoke can be harmful to nonsmokers, no reliable scientific study has directly shown secondary cigar smoke to have comparably adverse effects. Absent such evidence, Beatie contends, the City's prohibitions against cigar smoking bear no rational relationship to a legitimate government interest, and they therefore violate his substantive due process rights.
Tobacco use has long been identified as a cause of death and disease in smokers, and in recent years medical researchers and public health officials have been persuaded that exposure to tobacco smoke may also place nonsmokers at risk. Epidemiological and clinical studies suggest that exposure to Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS)--tobacco smoke exhaled by smokers combined with the smoke that escapes from the burning end of a tobacco product--can cause numerous ailments in nonsmokers, including eye and upper respiratory tract irritation, heart problems, birth defects and lung cancer. See Indoor Air Quality; Proposed Rule, 59 Fed.Reg. 15,967, 15,973-15,983 (1994) () (proposed April 5, 1994).
Responding to this medical evidence, federal public health officials have issued several reports outlining the dangers of ETS exposure. In a 1986 report, the Surgeon General concluded that exposure to ETS can cause cancer in adults and that children whose Against this backdrop, the New York City Council began deliberations in March 1994 on a proposal to strengthen the City's existing anti-smoking laws. After conducting public hearings and entertaining testimony from over 200 witnesses, the City enacted the Smoke-Free Air Act.
parents smoke are at increased risk for respiratory ailments. See U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders § 1.2 (1992) [EPA Report ] (citing U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, The Health Consequences of Involuntary Smoking, A Report of the Surgeon General (1986)). Similar concerns prompted the Environmental Protection Agency in 1993 to issue a report classifying ETS as a Class A (known) Human Carcinogen and stating that exposure to ETS can worsen childhood asthma attacks and increase the risk of bronchitis and pneumonia in infants and small children. See EPA Designates Passive Smoking a "Class A" or Known Human Carcinogen, EPA ENVT'L NEWS (Jan. 7, 1993).
The Act severely restricts the smoking of tobacco products, including cigars. It prohibits or limits smoking in nearly all public places other than bars, billiard parlors, hotel lobbies, and a handful of other exempted locations. See Admin. Code § 17-505 (listing exempted locations). Under the City's Administrative Code, § 17-503(a), smoking is prohibited during operating hours in enclosed areas within public transportation and mass transportation facilities, public restrooms, retail stores, business establishments, libraries, museums and galleries, theaters, auditoriums, convention centers, sports arenas, health clubs, public meeting places, health care facilities, childrens' institutions, zoos, and elevators. Under § 17-503(c) smoking is also restricted in outdoor dining and seating areas and playgrounds, and under § 17-503(d) it is banned altogether in public and private day-care centers, pre-primary, primary and secondary educational facilities. Finally, under § 17-504 only restricted smoking is permitted in the workplace.
With respect to restaurants, which are the focus of plaintiff's challenge to the law, the Act completely prohibits smoking in dining areas of restaurants with more than 35 seats, except in special smoking rooms or bar areas of restaurants meeting certain criteria. Admin. Code. § 17-503(a)(5). One practical effect of these restrictions has been greatly to reduce the already small number of "cigar friendly" restaurants in the City. Plaintiff and like-minded lovers of cigars who wish to smoke with their meal now find their options extremely limited.
Hoping once again to enjoy the occasional Opus X in his favorite culinary establishments, plaintiff filed suit in May 1995 alleging that there is no reliable scientific evidence demonstrating that cigar smoke is harmful to nonsmokers and asserting that absent such evidence, the Act's limitations on such smoking bear no rational relationship to any legitimate governmental objective and therefore violate the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
After limited discovery, the defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that the evidence proffered by plaintiff was not sufficient to demonstrate that the City lacked a rational basis for regulating cigar smoking. The district court agreed and granted the motion dismissing plaintiff's complaint. From this dismissal, plaintiff appeals only from the ruling on his due process claims. We affirm.
A motion for summary judgment may be granted only when no genuine issue of material fact is presented and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). A grant of summary judgment is reviewed de novo on appeal. Lowrance v. Achtyl, 20 F.3d 529, 534 (2d Cir.1994). When deciding a summary judgment motion, a trial court's function is not to weigh the evidence, make credibility determinations or resolve issues of fact, United States v. Rem, 38 F.3d 634, 644 (2d Cir.1994), but rather to determine whether Our task is to decide whether the district court erred in determining that there was no evidence in the record sufficient to support a finding that the City of New York lacked a rational basis for regulating cigar smoking. Legislative acts that do not interfere with fundamental rights or single out suspect classifications carry with them a strong presumption of constitutionality and must be upheld if "rationally related to a legitimate state interest." See City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Ctr., Inc., 473 U.S. 432, 440, 105 S.Ct. 3249, 3254, 87 L.Ed.2d 313 (1985). Accordingly, we will invalidate such a law on substantive due process grounds only when a plaintiff can demonstrate that there is no rational relationship between the legislation and a legitimate legislative purpose. Kelley v. Johnson, 425 U.S. 238, 247, 96 S.Ct. 1440, 1445, 47 L.Ed.2d 708 (1976).
drawing all reasonable inferences from the evidence presented in favor of the non-moving party, a fair-minded jury could find in the non-moving party's favor. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2512, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). Where the evidence in the record could reasonably support a verdict in the non-moving party's favor, summary judgment is improper. Id.
Several presumptions underlie appellant's challenge to the Act. He believes, first, that the City Council cannot simply hypothesize a scientific conclusion for the basis of the legislation because such legislation must be founded on scientific evidence. Second, Beatie suggests that the ban on cigars should not be sustained because it is in reality predicated on the unpopularity of secondary cigar smoke to some groups of citizens.
It is helpful in placing this appeal in its proper context to review briefly the history of the rational relationship test. A good beginning point is Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 25 S.Ct. 539, 49 L.Ed. 937 (1905), decided over 90 years ago. Lochner, a Utica, New York baker, had been convicted under a New York law limiting to 60 the hours bakery employees could work, and his conviction had been upheld in New York's highest court. In reversing that conviction the Supreme Court ruled New York's law was not a legitimate exercise of its police power, but rather an arbitrary interference with Lochner's freedom to contract with his employees and thus violative of his substantive due process rights. Justice Holmes wrote in dissent "state laws may regulate life in many ways which we as legislators might...
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