Board of Educ. of Mt. Sinai Union Free School Dist. v. New York State Teachers Retirement System
| Decision Date | 12 July 1995 |
| Docket Number | D,No. 1275,1275 |
| Citation | 60 F.3d 106 |
| Parties | 101 Ed. Law Rep. 668 BOARD OF EDUCATION OF THE MT. SINAI UNION FREE SCHOOL DISTRICT; Mt. Sinai Union Free School District; Peter C. Paciolla, Superintendent of Mt. Sinai Union Free School District; Nicholas C. DiPiazza, as President of the Board of Education of the Mt. Sinai Union Free School District and individually; Gail Litsch; Maureen Poerio; Board of Education of the Sewanhaka Central High School District; Sewanhaka Central High School District; Dr. George Goldstein, Superintendent of Sewanhaka Central High School District; and James Parla, as President of the Board of Education, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. NEW YORK STATE TEACHERS RETIREMENT SYSTEM; H.N. Langlitz, in his capacity as Executive Director, New York State Teachers Retirement System; Richard E. Tehhaken, President; Richard F. Lindstrom, Vice President; Michael R. Corn; R. Michael Kraus; Lucy P. Martin; Joseph P. McLaughlin; S.J. Salenger; H. Carl McCall; Ruth E. Williams; Iris Wolfson, in their capacity as members of the Board of Directors of the New York State Teachers Retirement System; Charles Golding; and William Conboy, Defendants-Appellees. ocket 94-9006. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Scott J. Steiner, New York City (Curt Rogg-Meltzer, Rogg-Meltzer, Steiner & Ebeling, New York City, of counsel), for plaintiffs-appellants.
Elizabeth Bradford, Asst. Atty. Gen. State of N.Y. (G. Oliver Koppell, Atty. Gen. State of N.Y., of counsel), for defendants-appellees.
Before: MINER and JACOBS, Circuit Judges. *
Plaintiffs-appellants are the Mt. Sinai Union Free School District ("Mt. Sinai"), the Sewanhaka Central School District ("Sewanhaka"), the boards of education of the school districts, officials of the school districts, and citizen taxpayers of one of the districts. They appeal from a judgment entered in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Platt, then-Chief Judge) dismissing their amended complaint, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1), on the ground that none of the plaintiffs had standing to pursue the claims alleged in the complaint. The district court concluded that: (1) the school districts and their boards of education, as political subdivisions of the state, lack standing to challenge state legislation, (2) the taxpayer plaintiffs were to be considered state taxpayers and, as such, could not demonstrate adequate injury to support Article III standing, nor did they have standing under state law, and (3) the school-board officials lack the requisite personal stake in the outcome of the controversy to support standing. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
This case involves a challenge to the constitutionality of Chapter 666 of the Laws of 1990 of New York State ("Chapter 666"), a law aimed at reducing unfairness in the provision of pensions to public employees. It appears from the amended complaint that the two defendant teachers in this action, William Conboy and Charles Golding, were former members of the New York City Police Department. Accordingly, both had been members of the New York City Police Pension Fund and, upon retirement from the Police Department, each became eligible for a pension from the Police Pension Fund. Like many retired police officers, the two men chose to pursue second careers. Conboy was employed as a teacher by Mt. Sinai beginning in 1979, and Golding was employed as a teacher by Sewanhaka beginning in 1971. When they were hired as teachers, state law permitted them to draw their pensions from the Police Pension Fund only on the condition that they not become members of the New York State Teachers' Retirement System ("NYSTRS"), the pension fund established for teachers in New York State schools.
In 1990, the legislature passed Chapter 666, which was designed to permit individuals like Conboy and Golding to receive a pension benefit that would reflect all of their years in public service. Under the law, an individual who has retired from service in one part of the public sector and is reemployed in another, including a school district, may apply for relief under Chapter 666. Upon proper application, Chapter 666 requires the school district employing such an individual to make contributions to NYSTRS in the amount the school district would have made had the retiree been a member of the system throughout the entire period of his second employment.
In 1992, Conboy and Golding applied for and were granted the benefits provided under Chapter 666. Accordingly, NYSTRS billed their school district employers for the payments that would have been made had Conboy and Golding been NYSTRS members from the start of their employment as teachers. As a result, Mt. Sinai was instructed to pay $89,172 to NYSTRS on Mr. Conboy's behalf, and Sewanhaka was instructed to pay $93,563 on Mr. Golding's behalf. 1 The school districts refused to make the payments, and brought this suit in the district court to challenge the validity of Chapter 666.
The amended complaint was filed by three groups of plaintiffs: 1) the school districts that employ the two teachers and their boards of education; 2) officers and directors of those school districts and boards, namely Peter C. Paciolla, who is the Superintendent of Mt. Sinai, Nicholas C. DiPiazza, who is the President of the Board of Education of Mt. Sinai, Dr. George Goldstein, who is the Superintendent of Sewanhaka, and James Parla, who is the President of Sewanhaka; and 3) taxpayers of the Mt. Sinai School District, namely Gail Litsch, Maureen Poerio, and Nicholas DiPiazza. The defendants named in the complaint were various officers and directors of NYSTRS, in their official capacities, and the two teachers.
Upon the facts described above, the plaintiffs alleged violations of federal and state law. Plaintiffs alleged that Chapter 666 violates the Contracts Clause of the Constitution by impairing the contracts between the school districts and the teachers, that Chapter 666 violates the Contracts Clause by impairing the contracts between the plaintiffs and NYSTRS, and that Chapter 666 violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The plaintiffs also pleaded various state-law claims, including violations of the state constitution, misapplication of Chapter 666, defects in the teachers' applications for benefits under Chapter 666, and a claim of conversion.
NYSTRS and its officers moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(1), on the ground that none of the plaintiffs has standing to maintain the action, and for failure to state a claim, under Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). 2 The district court granted the defendants' motion on the ground that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring suit. The court held that (1) the taxpayer plaintiffs were to be considered state taxpayers, rather than municipal taxpayers, and, as such, did not suffer a "concrete" injury sufficient to support standing; (2) the taxpayer plaintiffs did not have standing under Article 7-A of the New York State Finance Law, which grants standing to challenge state expenditures, because the expenditures at issue would be made by school districts and not by the state; (3) the plaintiff school district officials lacked a sufficient injury to give rise to standing; and (4) the plaintiff school districts and boards of education lacked standing to contest the state legislation because they were creatures of the state legislature.
In this appeal, plaintiffs-appellants challenge only that portion of the district court's judgment in which the court determined that the taxpayers and the officials of the school districts and of the boards of education lack standing. They do not challenge the determination that the school districts and boards of education lack standing.
This court reviews the dismissal of a complaint for lack of standing de novo. See Thompson v. County of Franklin, 15 F.3d 245, 249 (2d Cir.1994). In exercising our review, we must "accept as true all material allegations of the complaint, and must construe the complaint in favor of the complaining party." Id. (quoting Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2206, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975) (internal quotation marks omitted)). Nonetheless, "it is the burden of the party who seeks the exercise of jurisdiction in his favor, clearly to allege facts demonstrating that he is a proper party to invoke judicial resolution of the dispute." FW/PBS, Inc. v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 231, 110 S.Ct. 596, 608, 107 L.Ed.2d 603 (1990) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). We conclude that, viewed under these standards, the plaintiffs have failed to establish that they have standing under any of the theories that they invoke.
The taxpayer plaintiffs contend that they have standing to challenge Chapter 666 under the taxpayer standing doctrine enunciated in Frothingham v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 447, 43 S.Ct. 597, 67 L.Ed. 1078 (1923) and its progeny. They further contend that they have standing as taxpayers under a state statute.
It is well settled that whether a plaintiff has standing in his capacity as a taxpayer turns largely on the sovereign whose act he challenges. A federal taxpayer, for example, cannot rest standing to challenge acts of Congress, or acts taken by other arms of the federal government, on the theory that the challenged conduct injures him through its effect on his taxes. This is so because the federal taxpayer's "interest in the moneys of the Treasury ... is shared with millions of others [and] is comparatively minute and indeterminable; and [because] the effect upon future taxation, of any payment out of the funds ... [is too] remote, fluctuating and uncertain." Frothingham, 262 U.S. at 487, 43...
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