On Behalf Of Those Similarly Situated v. The City Of N.Y.

• Decision Date: 23 September 2010
• Docket Number: Docket No. 09-2053-cv.
• Parties: Walter E. CARVER, individually, and on behalf of those similarly situated, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. The CITY OF NEW YORK, a body corporate and politic, Michael R. Bloomberg, individually and in his official capacity as Mayor of the City of New York, New York City Human Resources Administration, Department of Social Services, an agency of the City of New York, Robert Doar, individually and in his official capacity as Administrator and Commissioner of the New York City Human Resources Administration and Department of Social Services, New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, a New York corporation, Alan D. Aviles, individually and in his official capacity as President and Chief Executive Officer of New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, New York City Department of Transportation, an agency of the City of New York, Janette Sadik-Khan, individually and in her official capacity as Commissioner of the New York Department of Transportation, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

621 F.3d 221

Walter E. CARVER, individually, and on behalf of those similarly situated, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.The CITY OF NEW YORK, a body corporate and politic, Michael R. Bloomberg, individually and in his official capacity as Mayor of the City of New York, New York City Human Resources Administration, Department of Social Services, an agency of the City of New York, Robert Doar, individually and in his official capacity as Administrator and Commissioner of the New York City Human Resources Administration and Department of Social Services, New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, a New York corporation, Alan D. Aviles, individually and in his official capacity as President and Chief Executive Officer of New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, New York City Department of Transportation, an agency of the City of New York, Janette Sadik-Khan, individually and in her official capacity as Commissioner of the New York Department of Transportation, Defendants-Appellees.

Docket No. 09-2053-cv.

United States Court of Appeals,Second Circuit.

Argued: April 5, 2010.

Decided: Sept. 23, 2010.

Richard D. Lamborn, Bronx, NY, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Mordecai Newman, Assistant Corporation Counsel (Larry A. Sonnenshein, Abigail Lynne Goldenberg, of counsel), for Michael A. Cardozo, Corporation Counsel of the City of New York, New York, NY, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: JACOBS, Chief Judge, WINTER and WALKER, Circuit Judges.

DENNIS JACOBS, Chief Judge:

Plaintiff Walter Carver appeals from an April 1, 2009 judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Sifton, J.), dismissing his complaint for lack of standing. As a recipient of public assistance from the City of New York, Carver was required to work for the City, and was paid minimum wage, under a program funded in whole or part by the State of New York. State law requires all state public-assistance recipients to reimburse the state for the assistance they receive, if they win the lottery. Carver won the lottery. It is alleged that the State intercepted part of the prize, and paid it over to the City. Carver sued the City (and various officials and agencies), seeking to recoup the prize money as well as prospective injunctive and declaratory relief. On behalf of himself and others similarly situated, he alleged ( inter alia ) violation of state and federal constitutional rights and of state and federal minimum wage laws. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Sifton, J.) dismissed for lack of standing on the ground that no action of the City defendants caused Carver's injury.

Insofar as the district court dismissed Carver's minimum-wage claims for retrospective relief, we hold that dismissal was in error, and accordingly vacate the court's judgment. In so holding, we express no opinion on the merits of these claims, or any defenses that defendants may raise. Otherwise, we affirm.

I

New York City's Work Experience Program (“the WEP”) employs public-assistance recipients in the public sector as a condition of receiving public funds. N.Y. Social Services Law § 336. Walter Carver worked for the City under the WEP from 1993 to March of 2000. For his work, Carver alleges that he was paid the equivalent of federal minimum wage in cash and public-assistance funds.

On or about August 10, 2007, Carver won $10,000 in the New York State lottery.

Section 131-r of the New York Social Services Law provides that any recipient of state public-assistance funds who wins a lottery prize of $600 or more must “reimburse the [state department of social services] from the winnings,” up to half of the prize amount:

Any person who is receiving or has received, within the previous ten years, public assistance pursuant to the provisions of this article, and who wins a lottery prize of six hundred dollars or more shall reimburse the [state department of social services] from the winnings, for all such public assistance benefits paid to such person during the previous ten years; provided, however, that such crediting to the department shall in no event exceed fifty percent of the amount of the lottery prize.

N.Y. Soc. Serv. L. § 131-r. To enforce this obligation, § 131-r directs the state commissioner of social services to “enter into an agreement with the director of the lottery, pursuant to [N.Y. Tax L. § 1613-b], for the crediting of lottery prizes against public assistance benefits.” Id.; see also N.Y. Tax L. § 1613-b (directing the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance to coordinate the crediting of lottery prizes pursuant to N.Y. Soc. Serv. L. § 131-r).

Pursuant to N.Y. Social Services Law § 131-r and N.Y. Tax Law § 1613-b, the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (“OTDA”) intercepted $5000, to be credited against the public assistance Carver had been paid. Carver alleges that the intercepted funds were then paid over to New York City. To recover his intercepted winnings, Carver initiated a series of lawsuits in state and federal court.

Carver initiated this lawsuit on September 10, 2008, styling his complaint as a putative class action on behalf of himself and all others similarly situated. Named as defendants were the City of New York, and various subsidiary agencies and city officials; Carver did not join the State of New York or any State agency or employee. Carver asserted [1] a taking violative of his rights under the federal and New York state constitutions; [2] a violation of his equal protection rights under the federal and New York state constitutions; [3] a violation of substantive due process under the federal and New York state constitutions; [4] a violation of § 206 of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. § 206; ¹ [5] a violation of New York state minimum wage law, N.Y. Labor Law § 652; ² and [6] inadequate notice of his rights as a lottery winner, in violation of N.Y. Tax Law § 1613-b(6). ³ He sought, inter alia, damages and prospective injunctive and declaratory relief. Before serving an answer, the defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), for lack of standing, and under Rule 12(b)(6), for failure to state a claim.

On April 1, 2009, the district court granted the defendants' motion, dismissing Carver's complaint under Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of standing. The court explicitly declined to reach the merits of Carver's claims, premising its decision to dismiss entirely on standing grounds. This appeal timely followed.

II

Standing is a federal jurisdictional question “determining the power of the court to entertain the suit.” Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). “[A] plaintiff must demonstrate standing for each claim and form of relief sought.” Baur v. Veneman, 352 F.3d 625, 642 n. 15 (2d Cir.2003). At issue in this case is Article III standing, for which a plaintiff must show [1] that he “suffered an injury-in-fact-an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized ... and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical”; [2] that there was a “causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of”; and [3] that it is “likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). “[E]ach element [of standing] must be supported in the same way as any other matter on which the plaintiff bears the burden of proof, i.e., with the manner and degree of evidence required at the successive stages of the litigation.” Id. at 561, 112 S.Ct. 2130. “Because standing is challenged [here] on the basis of the pleadings, we [therefore] accept as true all material allegations of the complaint, and must construe the complaint in favor of the complaining party.” W.R. Huff Asset Mgmt. Co. v. Deloitte & Touche LLP, 549 F.3d 100, 106 (2d Cir.2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). We review questions of standing de novo. Id.

The district court found first that “[t]he only injury alleged by plaintiff is the withholding of his lottery winnings,” and held that such withholding qualified as an “injury-in-fact.” The court went on, however, to hold that causation was lacking: that the “OTDA, not the City Defendants, effected the action that constitutes [Carver's] claimed injury,” and that Carver “ha[d] not alleged any facts supporting an inference that the City Defendants influenced [the] OTDA's decision to withhold [his] lottery winnings.” “In fact,” stated the court, “according to plaintiff's allegations, the City Defendants took no relevant action in this matter (other than supervising plaintiff's participation in the [WEP] years prior to the events leading to this action) until after [the] OTDA withheld plaintiff's lottery winnings, at which time they allegedly accepted funds which were transferred to them pursuant to a system of statutes, regulations, contracts[,] and practices.” (internal quotation marks omitted).

We disagree. Carver has standing to assert his minimum-wage claims insofar as he alleges injury when the City paid him minimum wage subject to a reimbursement obligation. Carver pertinently claims that the City defendants violated state and federal labor law by paying him minimum wage while requiring that he return some portion of those wages in the event he won the lottery. On this theory, Carver was directly injured by the City's alleged failure to abide by state and federal labor law when compensating him for his work.

True, on this theory, the City seemingly could not have complied with its minimum-wage obligations without, for example, agreeing to return (or reject) any intercepted lottery winnings as necessary to ensure that Carver's wages did not fall below statutory minimums, or exempting his wages from the reimbursement obligation, or...