Law Students Civil Rights Research Coun., Inc. v. Wadmond

• Decision Date: 17 February 1969
• Docket Number: 2938.,68 Civ. 2917
• Citation: 299 F. Supp. 117
• Parties: LAW STUDENTS CIVIL RIGHTS RESEARCH COUNCIL, INC., Toby B. Golick, James C. Mauro, Jr. and William H. B. Rodarmor on behalf of themselves and all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Lowell WADMOND, Felix A. Muldoon, Edwin L. Weisl, Mark F. Hughes, Bruce Bromley, Monroe Goldwater, Arthur H. Schwartz, Bernard Teencher, Thomas B. Dyett and Alfred A. Giardino as chairman and members of the Appellate Division First Department Committee on Character and Fitness of Applicants for Admission to the Bar, Defendants. Stephen Martin WEXLER, H. Gabriel Kaimowitz, Robert M. Cover, the Columbia Law Students Guild, New York City Chapter of National Lawyers Guild, Plaintiffs, v. The SUPREME COURT OF the STATE OF NEW YORK, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT; the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department; the Committee on Character and Fitness, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, First Judicial Department; the Committee on Character and Fitness, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

299 F. Supp. 117

LAW STUDENTS CIVIL RIGHTS RESEARCH COUNCIL, INC., Toby B. Golick, James C. Mauro, Jr. and William H. B. Rodarmor on behalf of themselves and all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiffs, v. Lowell WADMOND, Felix A. Muldoon, Edwin L. Weisl, Mark F. Hughes, Bruce Bromley, Monroe Goldwater, Arthur H. Schwartz, Bernard Teencher, Thomas B. Dyett and Alfred A. Giardino as chairman and members of the Appellate Division First Department Committee on Character and Fitness of Applicants for Admission to the Bar, Defendants.

Stephen Martin WEXLER, H. Gabriel Kaimowitz, Robert M. Cover, the Columbia Law Students Guild, New York City Chapter of National Lawyers Guild, Plaintiffs, v. The SUPREME COURT OF the STATE OF NEW YORK, APPELLATE DIVISION, FIRST JUDICIAL DEPARTMENT; the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department; the Committee on Character and Fitness, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, First Judicial Department; the Committee on Character and Fitness, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department, Defendants.

68 Civ. 2917, 2938.

United States District Court S. D. New York.

February 17, 1969.

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Alan H. Levine, New York City, (Jeremiah S. Gutman, Steven Goldsmith, New York City) for plaintiffs Law Students Civil Rights Research Council, Inc., and another.

Leonard B. Boudin, New York City, (David Rosenberg, Rabinowitz, Boudin & Standard, New York City), for plaintiffs Stephen Martin Wexler, and another.

Daniel M. Cohen, Asst. Atty. Gen., (Louis J. Lefkowitz, Atty. Gen. of the State of New York) for defendants.

David W. Peck, New York City, (Michael M. Maney, Sullivan & Cromwell, New York City) for individual defendants and defendant Committees.

Before FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge, and BONSAL and MOTLEY, District Judges.

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge:

These two actions for injunctive and declaratory relief, invoking our jurisdiction, 28 U.S.C. ? 1343(3), to enforce the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. ? 1983, challenge the constitutional validity of procedures for admission to the New York bar, both generally and particularly as applied in the First and Second Judicial Departments.¹ The plaintiffs in 68 Civ. 2938 are three candidates certified as having passed their bar examinations, the Columbia Law Students Guild, and the New York City Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild. The plaintiffs in 68 Civ. 2917 are the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council, Inc., an organization of some 1500 law students with chapters at sixty law schools including four in New York City, and three law students who plan to apply for admission to the New York bar when eligible. Both actions are sought to be maintained as class actions on behalf of all persons seeking or planning to seek such admission. The defendants are the Appellate Divisions and their Justices and the Committees on Character and Fitness for the First and Second Judicial Departments and their members.

Section 90(1) (a) of the New York Judiciary Law, McKinney's Consol.Laws, c. 30, provides

Upon the state board of law examiners certifying that a person has passed the required examination, or that the examination has been dispensed with, the appellate division of the supreme court in the department to which such person shall have been certified by the state board of law examiners, if it shall be satisfied that such person possesses the character and general fitness requisite for an attorney and counsellor-at-law, shall admit him to practice as such attorney and counsellor-at-law in all the courts of this state, provided that he has in all respects complied with the rules of the court of appeals and the rules of the appellate divisions relating to the admission of attorneys.

This provision is implemented by Article 94 of the Civil Practice Law and Rules enacted in 1962, which adopts rules previously promulgated by the Justices of the Appellate Divisions. The rules² comprising Article 94 direct the appellate division in each judicial department to appoint a committee to investigate the character and fitness of each applicant for admission, R. 9401; prescribe that "unless otherwise ordered by the appellate division, no person shall be admitted to practice without a certificate from the proper committee that it has carefully investigated the character and fitness of the applicant and that, in such respects, he is entitled to admission," R.9404; and authorize such committee, "subject to the approval of the justices of the appellate division, * * * to prescribe and from time to time to amend a form of statement or questionnaire on which the applicant shall set forth all the information and data required by the committee and the appellate division justices, including specifically his present and such past places of actual residence as may be required * * *," R. 9404. Rule 9406 directs:

No person shall receive said certificate from any committee and no person shall be admitted to practice as an attorney and counselor at law in the courts of this state, unless he shall furnish satisfactory proof to the effect:

1. that he believes in the form of the government of the United States and is loyal to such government * * *

The complaints attack a number of these provisions as violating the First Amendment to the Constitution as made applicable to New York by the Fourteenth. The statutory provisions, notably ? 90(1) (a) of the Judiciary Law and the quoted portion of Rule 9406, are challenged as being so vague and impermissibly broad as to have a "chilling effect," see Dombrowski v. Pfister, 380 U.S. 479, 494, 85 S.Ct. 1116, 14 L.Ed.2d 22 (1965), on plaintiffs' exercise of their First Amendment rights. Rule 9406 is challenged as allowing investigation into mere beliefs and denial of admission for them and as placing on applicants a burden of proof they cannot constitutionally be made to bear. The questionnaires prescribed by the two committees are criticized as requiring disclosure of acts and associations beyond the scope of proper inquiry. Believing that substantial constitutional issues had been tendered, Judge Motley requested the Chief Judge of the Circuit to convoke a court of three judges, 28 U.S.C. ?? 2281, 2284, and this was done. Judge Motley reserved judgment on the motion made by plaintiffs in 68 Civ. 2917 to consolidate the two suits pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 42(a); we grant the motion and have considered the cases together. Plaintiffs have sought summary judgment or, if that not be granted, a preliminary injunction and discovery. The defendants have moved for dismissal of the complaint or, in the alternative, for dismissal so far as the complaint relates to the statutes³ and remission of the issues concerning the questionnaires to Judge Motley.

I.

Before proceeding to the merits we must examine claims made with respect to the standing of the plaintiffs, the suability of the defendants, the failure to join the Court of Appeals or its members, and the desirability of abstention.

With respect to the individual plaintiffs, defendants admit the standing only of the three who have passed the bar examination. They contend however, that, so far as concerns the statutes, these three have no need for equitable relief since, if the character committee should refuse them certification on an impermissible ground, they can obtain an adequate remedy by applying to the appellate division and, if the state courts persist in refusal, by seeking review in the Supreme Court; and that, so far as concerns the questionnaires, their objections are at most a matter for a single judge since each questionnaire is effective only in part of the state. We find it unnecessary to evaluate this argument.⁴ For we believe the three plaintiffs who are law students intending to apply for admission have standing to seek equitable relief since they have set themselves apart from the public at large sufficiently to have standing to protest statutes governing admission to the bar that may inhibit exercise of First Amendment rights during the period of their study. Cf. Gart v. Cole, 263 F.2d 244, 250 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 359 U.S. 978, 79 S.Ct. 898, 3 L.Ed.2d 929 (1959); Gonzalez v. Freeman, 118 U.S.App.D.C. 180, 334 F.2d 570 (1964); Overseas Media Corp. v. McNamara, 128 U.S.App.D.C. 48, 385 F.2d 308 (1967); Davis, Standing: Taxpayers and Others, 36 U.Chi.L.Rev. 601, 617-628 (1968). Since these students raise a substantial constitutional question with respect to at least one of the statutes, a court of three judges is required for that purpose; the argument that attacks on the questionnaires should be remitted to a single district judge will be examined later in this opinion. We also have no occasion now to consider the standing of the various organizations that have joined in the complaints.

In considering whether an injunction or a declaratory judgment should be issued, we start from the principle of Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908), that when officers administering a state statute act in a manner that exceeds constitutional limits, they have no claim to sovereign immunity. Against this is the equally well settled principle that a judge exercising his judicial function is not liable for damages under 42 U.S.C. ? 1983. Pierson v. Ray, 386 U.S. 547, 553-555, 87 S.Ct. 1213, 18 L.Ed.2d 288 (1967).

While the interest served by the latter principle in making the state judge free "to decide all cases within his jurisdiction that are brought before him, including controversial cases that arouse the most intense feelings in the litigants," without "fear that unsatisfied litigants may hound him with litigation charging malice or corruption," Pierson v. Ray, supra, 386 U.S. at 554, 87 S.Ct. at 1218, is an important one, its applicability to an injunction is by no means clear. See United States v. McLeod, ...