Watson v. Fox

• Decision Date: 22 May 2012
• Docket Number: No. 2009–215–Appeal.,2009–215–Appeal.
• Parties: Robert WATSON v. Gordon FOX et al.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

44 A.3d 130

Robert WATSON

v.Gordon FOX et al.¹

No. 2009–215–Appeal.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

May 22, 2012.

Nicholas Gorham, Esq., North Scituate, for Plaintiff.

Max Wistow, Esq., Providence, for Defendant.

Present: SUTTELL, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, ROBINSON, and INDEGLIA, JJ.

OPINION

Justice FLAHERTY, for the Court.

The plaintiff, Robert Watson, together with nine Republican colleagues from the Rhode Island House of Representatives, filed a complaint for declaratory relief in which they sought a ruling that the process the General Assembly used to allocate $2.3 million in state money for legislative grants to local and private organizations in the FY2008 ² budget act violated articles 5, 6, and 9 of the Rhode Island Constitution.³ The plaintiffs brought this action in their individual capacities as Rhode Island taxpayers, and not in their capacities as elected officials. In response, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the complaint under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Superior Court Rules of Civil Procedure. After considering both the written and oral arguments of the parties, a justice of the Superior Court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss. In doing so, she found that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring their claim because Rhode Island does not recognize so-called “taxpayer standing,” and because the plaintiffs were unable to articulate a particularized injury that was distinct from any suffered by the general public. Only the plaintiff Robert Watson perfected an appeal from that judgment to this Court. For the reasons set forth in this opinion, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.

IFacts and Travel

The plaintiff's complaint challenges the constitutionality of a decades-old discretionary assistance program operated by the Rhode Island General Assembly, commonly known as the “legislative grant program.” The program is administered under the auspices of the General Assembly's Joint Committee on Legislative Services (JCLS), which consists of “the president and the minority leader of the senate, the majority and minority leaders from the house of representatives, and the speaker of the house of representatives.” G.L.1956 § 22–11–1. The JCLS is responsible for “all administrative matters affecting the operation of the general assembly, including, but not limited to * * * [t]he control of house and senate appropriations, including expenditures of standing, select, and special committees of the general assembly, except those provided otherwise by law * * *.” Section 22–11–3(a)(3). On March 31, 2005, at an open meeting at which all the members of the committee were present, the JCLS adopted the current process by which organizations may apply for grants of state funds.⁴

The process begins when the legislative sponsor of a nonprofit entity or community organization files a preliminary grant application with the fiscal office of either the Rhode Island House or the State Senate. The record does not illuminate the decision-making process in great detail; however, it appears from the minutes of the 2005 meeting that the final decision about whether or not to award a grant to an applicant rests with the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate, depending upon the membership of the sponsoring legislator. If an applicant receives a grant, the JCLS posts the following identifying information on the General Assembly's website: (1) the name and address of the organization; (2) a contact person; (3) the amount requested; (4) the proposed purpose of the grant; and (5) the name of the grant's legislative sponsors. As a condition of receiving state funds, the organization is responsible for submitting a “legislative grant expenditure report” detailing all the expenditures associated with the award.⁵ According to then-House Majority Leader, and now Speaker, Gordon Fox, the application process was modified to foster “disclosure and accountability.” ⁶

In late 2006, as part of the FY2008 budget process, the JCLS proposed an appropriation of $2.3 million in “other grants” as part of its legislative budget. This appropriation was included in the state budget that then-Governor Carcieri subsequently submitted to the legislature—a multivolume document that was hundreds of pages long—as a line item titled “Assistance, Grants, and Benefits.” The plaintiff, along with Representatives McManus, Story, Ehrhardt, and Gorham, all of whom were plaintiffs below, introduced the original FY2008 budget bill in a condensed format.⁷ That bill identified appropriations for the executive branch, the legislature, and the judiciary, but did not include line-item details for every appropriation in each branch. The bill was referred to the House Finance Committee, which held numerous public hearings, as it does annually. Eventually, the committee recommended an amended budget bill to the full House of Representatives.⁸ Before the House voted on the finalized budget act, the House Fiscal Advisory Staff published a detailed budget analysis that identified the $2.3 million grant appropriation as a separate line item. However, the budget act itself did not include a line item for every appropriation, including the grant money.

Both chambers of the General Assembly passed the act and transmitted the budget to the Governor, who exercised his constitutional prerogative to veto it.⁹ On June 21, 2007, the General Assembly voted to override the Governor's veto by a vote of more than the constitutionally-mandated three-fifths of the members of each chamber.¹⁰ In both the initial vote to enact the budget and the vote to override the Governor's veto, the budget act passed by more than a two-thirds majority of both the House and the Senate, as required by article 6, section 11 of the Rhode Island Constitution. Nearly a year later, on June 17, 2008, plaintiff and his fellow House Republicans filed their complaint for declaratory relief; soon after, they filed a motion for summary judgment.

According to plaintiff, the process of allocating grants to nonprofit entities, however well-intentioned, committed a multitude of constitutional sins. Before a motion justice in Providence County Superior Court, plaintiff argued that the legislative grant program, as administered by the speaker of the House and the president of the Senate, unconstitutionally usurped the role of the executive branch because no member of the executive branch had any involvement or decision-making authority with respect to the recipients of the legislative grants. Additionally, he argued that the grants were unconstitutional appropriations because the failure to include the grants as a line-item appropriation deprived legislators of information to such a degree that the members could not have understood that they were voting to allot $2.3 million of public funds for local and/or private purposes. Therefore, plaintiff argues that a two-thirds majority of each chamber of the General Assembly effectively did not approve each appropriation.

In response to plaintiffs' complaint for declaratory relief, defendants filed a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, as well as an objection to plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment. The defendants argued that plaintiffs, as private taxpayers, lacked standing to bring the litigation because they could not demonstrate an injury-in-fact that was distinguishable from that suffered by the population at large. Furthermore, defendants argued that the request for declaratory relief would require the court to rule on a nonjusticiable political question.

A hearing was held before a justice of the Superior Court on October 28, 2008. After considering the written and oral arguments of the parties, the motion justice granted defendants' motion to dismiss. In a written decision, the motion justice ruled that it was “undisputed that plaintiffs suffered no injury beyond that suffered by the general populace and that they, therefore, cannot meet the injury-in-fact test.” Furthermore, relying on this Court's ruling in Sennott v. Hawksley, 103 R.I. 730, 731–32, 241 A.2d 286, 287 (1968), she found that there was no time-sensitive element that would compel the court to “leap-frog” over the issue of standing. In addition, she ruled that even if plaintiffs could have demonstrated proper standing, the dispute invited “a political solution to an in-house legislative branch quarrel” and as such was a nonjusticiable political question. Accordingly, the motion justice granted defendants' motion to dismiss.¹¹

IIStandard of Review

A trial justice considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion “must look no further than the complaint, assume that all allegations in the complaint are true, and resolve any doubts in a plaintiff's favor.” McKenna v. Williams, 874 A.2d 217, 225 (R.I.2005) (quoting Rhode Island Affiliate, ACLU, Inc. v. Bernasconi, 557 A.2d 1232, 1232 (R.I.1989)). “If it appears beyond a reasonable doubt that [the] plaintiff would not be entitled to relief, under any facts that could be established, the motion to dismiss should be granted.” Id. (citing Laurence v. Sollitto, 788 A.2d 455, 456 (R.I.2002)). When this Court reviews a ruling that grants or denies a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, it applies the same standards as the trial justice. See id. (citing Estate of Sherman v. Almeida, 747 A.2d 470, 473 (R.I.2000)). “Consequently, it is our function to examine the complaint to determine if plaintiffs are entitled to relief under any conceivable set of facts.” Id. (citing Almeida, 747 A.2d at 473).

IIIAnalysis

A. Does plaintiff have standing under this Court's existing precedent?

In this particular case, our analysis requires us to resolve a fundamental preliminary question: Is this Court presented with a justiciable controversy? ¹² In short, “[t]he plaintiffs must have standing to bring this action, and the Superior Court must have subject matter jurisdiction over the issues raised in the complaint.”...