Centro De La Comunidad Hispana De Locust Valley v. Town of Oyster Bay

• Citation: 868 F.3d 104
• Decision Date: 22 August 2017
• Docket Number: No. 15-2914-cv,August Term, 2016,15-2914-cv
• Parties: CENTRO DE LA COMUNIDAD HISPANA DE LOCUST VALLEY, and The Workplace Project, Plaintiffs-Counter-Defendants-Appellees, v. The TOWN OF OYSTER BAY, and John Venditto, Town Supervisor of the Town of Oyster Bay, Defendants-Counter-Claimants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

868 F.3d 104

CENTRO DE LA COMUNIDAD HISPANA DE LOCUST VALLEY, and The Workplace Project, Plaintiffs-Counter-Defendants-Appellees,

v.The TOWN OF OYSTER BAY, and John Venditto, Town Supervisor of the Town of Oyster Bay, Defendants-Counter-Claimants-Appellants.

No. 15-2914-cv

August Term, 2016

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: September 12, 2016

Decided: August 22, 2017

Jonathan Sinnreich , Sinnreich Kosakoff & Messina LLP, Central Islip, NY, for Defendants-Counter-Claimants-Appellants The Town of Osyter Bay and John Venditto.

Arthur Eisenberg, Jordan Wells, Mariko Hirose , New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York, NY; Alan Levine, Jackson Chin , Latino Justice PRLDEF, New York, NY, for Plaintiffs-Counter-Defendants-Appellees Centro de la Comunidad Hispana de Locust Valley and The Workplace Project.

Before: Jacobs and Parker, Circuit Judges, and Restani, Judge.^*

Judge Jacobs dissents in a separate opinion.

Barrington D. Parker, Circuit Judge:

This appeal requires us to determine whether an ordinance passed by the Town of Oyster Bay to regulate the road-side solicitation of employment complies with the First Amendment. The district court concluded it did not and granted injunctive relief to Plaintiffs-Appellees the Workplace Project ("Workplace") and Centro de La Comunidad de Hispana de Locust Valley ("Centro"), two entities that work to advance the interests of day laborers in the area. We affirm.^**

In 2009, the Town of Oyster Bay's board passed an ordinance titled "Solicitation from Streets and Sidewalks Prohibited" (the "Ordinance"), which principally imposed the following restriction:

It shall be unlawful for any person standing within or adjacent to any public right-of-way within the Town of Oyster Bay to stop or attempt to stop any motor vehicle utilizing said public right-of-way for the purpose of soliciting employment of any kind from the occupants of said motor vehicle.

Joint Appendix on Appeal ("App'x") 466–67.¹ The Ordinance exempts the solicitation of a wide variety of "[s]ervice related activities such as taxicabs, limousine service, public transportation vehicles, towing operations, ambulance service and similar uses." App'x 467.

The Ordinance's stated objective is to protect residents from "the dangers of obstruction, distraction and delays of traffic caused by the solicitation of employment by pedestrians." App'x 466. The record reflects that the actual impetus for the Ordinance was a desire to regulate day laborers seeking employment in Oyster Bay. Specifically, the Town of Oyster Bay sought to restrict the effects of daily gatherings of usually 20–30, but sometimes 50, day laborers soliciting employment along a four-block stretch of Oyster Bay's Forest Avenue (known as the "Forest Avenue shape-up site"). At an initial public meeting, Oyster Bay residents complained that the day laborers were causing dangerous, congestive, unhygienic, and unsightly conditions. See App'x 734. At a subsequent public hearing, residents spoke both in favor of and against a proposed version of the Ordinance. Certain residents discussed traffic problems created by the laborers' solicitation, see App'x 801, while others premised their objections on their views as to the laborers' immigration status, see App'x 826.

Prior to the Ordinance's enactment, an investigation was conducted at the direction of Oyster Bay Town Supervisor and Defendant John Venditto. In furtherance of that investigation, Oyster Bay's Commissioner of Public Safety visited the Forest Avenue shape-up site "between 15 and 20" times, and, among the "numerous and repeated" issues he observed caused by the day laborers' activities were: (i) automobile and pedestrian traffic congestion leading to hazards, delays, and noise disturbance; (ii) 20 to 30 day laborers "swarm[ing]" passing cars; and (iii) impeding and forced re-routing of school busses. App'x 1029–33.

The Ordinance was unanimously adopted by the town board in September 2009. However, it has never been enforced and no person has been charged with violating it. App'x 1035.

In May 2010, Plaintiffs sued the Town of Oyster Bay and Town Supervisor Venditto (together, the "Town") under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 to enjoin the Ordinance on the ground that it violated the First and Fourteenth Amendments. App'x 128. The District Court found that the Ordinance likely violated the First Amendment and entered a temporary restraining order that was converted into a preliminary injunction. The Town appealed to this Court contending that Plaintiffs' members who were subject to the Ordinance were illegal immigrants engaging in illegal speech that was not protected by the First Amendment and, alternatively, that the Ordinance was narrowly tailored and therefore complied with the First Amendment. We affirmed on the ground that the district court had not abused its discretion in converting the temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction and remanded to the District Court because the record on appeal contained no factual development. Centro de la Comunidad Hispana de Locust Valley v. Town of Oyster Bay , 420 Fed.Appx. 97 (2d Cir. 2011).

On remand, the Town moved for partial summary judgment on the ground that Centro lacked standing. The court denied the motion, concluding that Centro adequately established that the Ordinance would impose actionable injuries to Centro as an organization. Centro de La Comunidad Hispana de Locust Valley v. Town of Oyster Bay , 954 F.Supp.2d 127, 135-36 (E.D.N.Y. 2013). Subsequently, Plaintiffs moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted. Centro de La Comunidad Hispana de Locust Valley v. Town of Oyster Bay , 128 F.Supp.3d 597 (E.D.N.Y. 2015). That ruling rejected the Town's argument that Workplace lacked standing, and, after finding that the Ordinance violated the First Amendment, permanently enjoined the Town from enforcing it. The district court's basis for finding the Ordinance unconstitutional was that although the Ordinance served a legitimate Town interest, it was insufficiently narrow to serve that interest and consequently could not pass muster under the First Amendment commercial speech framework of Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission of New York , 447 U.S. 557, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 65 L.Ed.2d 341 (1980). This appeal followed.

I

"We review de novo both a district court's grant of summary judgment and its determination of standing." Nat. Res. Def. Council, Inc. v. U.S. Food & Drug Admin. , 710 F.3d 71, 79 (2d Cir. 2013). Summary judgment is proper only where "the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). We must "constru[e] the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party and draw[ ] all reasonable inferences in its favor." Costello v. City of Burlington , 632 F.3d 41, 45 (2d Cir. 2011).

II

The Town's main argument on appeal is that Workplace and Centro lack standing because they are essentially disorganized ad-hoc interest groups that aim to vindicate generalized grievances rather than redress concrete and imminent harms. The district court concluded that both organizations have standing to challenge the Ordinance because they both established that enforcement of the Ordinance would pose a "perceptible impairment" to their activities. 954 F.Supp.2d at 134–37 (Centro) ; 128 F.Supp.3d at 607–09 (Workplace).

We conclude that the district court correctly held that Workplace has standing. Because this conclusion is a sufficient predicate for federal jurisdiction, we are not called on to consider, and therefore do not reach, the question of whether Centro has standing. It is well settled that where, as here, multiple parties seek the same relief, "the presence of one party with standing is sufficient to satisfy Article III's case-or-controversy requirement." Rumsfeld v. Forum of Acad. and Inst. Rights, Inc. , 547 U.S. 47, 52 n.2, 126 S.Ct. 1297, 164 L.Ed.2d 156 (2006) ; see also Doe v. Bolton , 410 U.S. 179, 189, 93 S.Ct. 739, 35 L.Ed.2d 201 (1973) ; Bowsher v. Synar , 478 U.S. 714, 721, 106 S.Ct. 3181, 92 L.Ed.2d 583 (1986).

It is undisputed that Workplace is an incorporated membership organization based in Nassau County, New York, the same county in which Oyster Bay is located. App'x 990. Its mission is to "end the exploitation of Latino immigrant workers on Long Island and to achieve socioeconomic justice by promoting the full political, economic and cultural participation of those workers in the communities in which they live." App'x 990. Workplace furthers its mission "with the participation of Latino immigrant workers on Long Island through community organizing, legal support, education, leadership development, and building worker cooperatives." App'x at 990.

To establish standing, Workplace, as an organization, bore the burden of showing: (i) an imminent "injury in fact" to itself as an organization (rather than to its members) that is "distinct and palpable"; (ii) that its injury is "fairly traceable" to enforcement of the Ordinance; and (iii) that a favorable decision would redress its injuries. Nnebe v. Daus , 644 F.3d 147, 156 (2d Cir. 2011) (quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) ); see also Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus , ––– U.S. ––––, 134 S.Ct. 2334, 2342, 189 L.Ed.2d 246 (2014) ("The party invoking federal jurisdiction bears the burden of establishing standing" (internal quotation marks omitted)). The Supreme Court has held that an organization establishes an injury-in-fact if it can show that it was "perceptibly impaired" by defendant's actions. Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman , 455 U.S. 363, 379, 102 S.Ct. 1114, 71 L.Ed.2d 214 (1982). Consequently, we have repeatedly held that "only a ‘perceptible impairment’ of an organization's activities is necessary for there to be an ‘injury in fact.’ " Nnebe , 644 F.3d at 157 ...