Graziano v. County of Albany

• Decision Date: 30 November 2004
• Citation: 3 N.Y.3d 475,787 N.Y.S.2d 689,821 N.E.2d 114
• Parties: In the Matter of JOHN A. GRAZIANO, as Election Commissioner of the County of Albany and as Member of the Board of Elections of the County of Albany, Appellant, v. COUNTY OF ALBANY et al., Respondents.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

3 N.Y.3d 475

821 N.E.2d 114

787 N.Y.S.2d 689

In the Matter of JOHN A. GRAZIANO, as Election Commissioner of the County of Albany and as Member of the Board of Elections of the County of Albany, Appellant, v. COUNTY OF ALBANY et al., Respondents.

Court of Appeals of the State of New York.

Argued October 13, 2004.

Decided November 30, 2004.

DerOhannesian & DerOhannesian, Albany (Paul DerOhannesian II of counsel), for appellant.

Michael C. Lynch, County Attorney, Albany, for respondents.

Judges CIPARICK, READ and R.S. SMITH concur with Judge GRAFFEO; Judge

ROSENBLATT dissents in part and votes to affirm in a separate opinion in which Chief Judge KAYE and Judge G.B. SMITH concur.

OPINION OF THE COURT

GRAFFEO, J.

The issue on appeal is whether a single election commissioner may bring suit to challenge county actions that allegedly impair the equal representation of the major political parties in the staffing of a local board of elections. We conclude that the right to pursue such a claim is implicit in the constitutional and statutory requirement of balanced partisan representation on local boards of elections.

The Albany County Board of Elections consists of two commissioners (see Election Law § 3-200 [2]), one from each of the two major political parties. Petitioner John Graziano, the Republican commissioner, commenced this combined declaratory judgment action and CPLR article 78 proceeding contesting the actions of the County of Albany relating to Board staffing and funding. Petitioner sought a judgment declaring that the Board enjoyed independent discretion both to appoint and dismiss staff and to spend funds within its appropriation in furtherance of its statutory obligations. He also sought an order enjoining the County from interfering with Board appointments. Michael Monescalchi, the Democratic commissioner, did not authorize the litigation, nor did he join the suit.

The petition contains allegations raising two distinct claims. Petitioner alleges that the County had applied a hiring freeze in a manner that impaired Board functions and had failed to authorize spending to obtain training for Board employees that he claimed was essential to the proper functioning of the Board. In addition, petitioner asserted that the County had delayed and interfered with Board hiring decisions in a manner that resulted in political imbalance in staffing on the Board on multiple occasions over a two-year period to the detriment of his political party.

In response to the petition, the County moved to dismiss the proceeding relying on Election Law § 3-212 (2), which requires that all actions of local boards of elections be supported by "a majority vote of the commissioners." The County argued that, as a single commissioner on Albany County's two-commissioner Board of Elections, petitioner lacked the authority to pursue his claim because the lawsuit was not supported by majority vote of the Board.

Supreme Court denied the motion to dismiss. Without providing the County an opportunity to answer, Supreme Court addressed the merits, determining that the Board enjoyed complete authority to appoint personnel and that the County's actions, principally the imposition of a hiring freeze, had improperly undermined Board authority.

The Appellate Division reversed the judgment and dismissed the petition, finding that as a sole commissioner of a two-commissioner board of elections, petitioner could not pursue his claim. We modify the judgment of the Appellate Division by reinstating petitioner's claim in part and remitting this matter to Supreme Court for further proceedings.

The County's challenge to petitioner's ability to bring suit raises the related issues of capacity and standing. "Capacity to sue is a threshold matter allied with, but conceptually distinct from, the question of standing. As a general matter, capacity concerns a litigant's power to appear and bring its grievance before the court" (Silver v Pataki, 96 NY2d 532, 537 [2001] [citation and internal quotation marks omitted]). The issue of capacity often arises in suits brought by governmental entities (see e.g. Community Bd. 7 of Borough of Manhattan v Schaffer, 84 NY2d 148 [1994]). "Being artificial creatures of statute, such entities have neither an inherent nor a common-law right to sue. Rather their right to sue, if it exists at all, must be derived from the relevant enabling legislation or some other concrete statutory predicate" (id. at 155-156). Capacity to sue may be expressly granted in enabling legislation or it may be inferred from review of the entity's statutory functions or responsibilities.

Standing involves a determination of whether "the party seeking relief has a sufficiently cognizable stake in the outcome so as to cast[ ] the dispute in a form traditionally capable of judicial resolution" (id. at 155 [internal quotation marks and citations omitted]). The two-part standing inquiry is designed to determine whether the party who is bringing suit is a proper party to request an adjudication of the dispute, as follows:

"First, a plaintiff must show `injury in fact,' meaning that plaintiff will actually be harmed by the challenged . . . action. As the term itself implies, the injury must be more than conjectural. Second, the injury a plaintiff asserts must fall within the zone of interests or concerns sought to be promoted or protected by the statutory provision under which the agency has acted" (New York State Assn. of Nurse Anesthetists v Novello, 2 N.Y.3d 207, 211 [2004] [citations omitted]).

Without both capacity and standing, a party lacks authority to sue.

In this case, the County did not dispute that the Board of Elections, a governmental entity, has the capacity to commence litigation. Rather, it argued that petitioner — a single election commissioner — lacked such authority because Election Law § 3-212 (2) requires that "[a]ll actions of the board shall require a majority vote of the commissioners prescribed by law for such board." The County therefore viewed the petition as an attempt to act on behalf of the Board absent the requisite vote of the other election commissioner.

We agree with the County that petitioner lacked capacity to pursue the part of his claim predicated on the County's interference with Board functions as a whole. Petitioner alleged that the County's imposition of a hiring freeze and its refusal to authorize the expenditure of funds for training impaired the ability of Board staff to properly prepare for upcoming elections. This aspect of the claim addressed the broad functioning of the Board. A lawsuit that raises concerns affecting the staff of both political parties is an "action" requiring approval of a majority of the commissioners under Election Law § 3-212 (2), in this case both petitioner and the Democratic commissioner. Absent such approval, petitioner lacked capacity to pursue those complaints against the County.

The same is not true of petitioner's other claim — that the County's actions resulted in intermittent political imbalance on the Albany County Board of Elections. This assertion implicates New York Constitution, article II, § 8, which mandates that all laws affecting the administration of boards of elections "shall secure equal representation of the two political parties which . . . cast the highest and the next highest number of votes." Election Law § 3-300 similarly requires "equal representation of the major political parties" on boards of elections. The requirement of bipartisanship on local boards of elections is an important component of our democratic process for its purpose is to ensure fair elections.

Election commissioners are appointed by the county legislative body based on certificates of party recommendation filed by the chairman or secretary of the county committee of the appropriate political party (Election Law § 3-204). Thus, inherent in the statutory scheme is the requirement that each election commissioner be chosen by his or her party to represent its interests on the board of elections. As an individual election commissioner, petitioner therefore performs two distinct statutory functions — he assists his cocommissioner in the administration of the Board and he safeguards the equal representation rights of his party. When fulfilling the latter function, we conclude that petitioner may act alone to challenge the actions of the County. Petitioner's capacity to sue to vindicate political interests grounded in the language of the Constitution and the Election Law is inherent in petitioner's unique role as guardian of the rights of his party and must be implied from the constitutional and statutory requirement of equal representation. Recognition of such a right ensures that attempts to disrupt the delicate balance required for the fair administration of elections are not insulated from judicial review. Election Law § 3-212 (2)'s requirement that "[a]ll actions of the board shall require a majority vote" does not require a different result. The constitutional and statutory equal representation guarantee encourages even-handed application of the Election Law and when this bipartisan balance is not maintained, the public interest is affected. But a concrete injury is not suffered by the board of elections as a whole — it is the political party that has sustained an actionable injury. Thus, when a commissioner files a claim to assure equal representation on behalf of his or her political party, Election Law § 3-212 (2) is not implicated because the initiation of a political imbalance lawsuit is simply not board action that requires a majority vote.

We also conclude, contrary to the dissent, that petitioner alleged an injury in fact sufficient to confer standing to pursue his claim. Because the County's objection to petitioner's authority to bring suit was made in a pre-answer motion to dismiss, we must assume the truth of petitioner's...