Hoston v. New York State Dept. of Health

• Decision Date: 28 April 1994
• Citation: 611 N.Y.S.2d 61,203 A.D.2d 826
• Parties: In the Matter of Ron HOSTON et al., Respondents, v. NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH et al., Appellants.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

Page 61

611 N.Y.S.2d 61

203 A.D.2d 826

In the Matter of Ron HOSTON et al., Respondents, v. NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH et al., Appellants.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division Third Department.

April 28, 1994.

G. Oliver Koppell, Atty. Gen. (Daniel Smirlock, of counsel), Albany, for appellants.

Roy King (William D. McGinn of La Duca, McGinn & Burbank, of counsel), Rochester, for respondents.

Before MIKOLL, J.P., and CREW, CASEY, YESAWICH and PETERS, JJ.

YESAWICH, Justice.

Appeal, by permission, from an order of the Supreme Court (Kahn, J.), entered June 14, 1993 in Albany County, which, in a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78, denied respondents' motion to dismiss the petition for lack of standing.

Planned Parenthood of Rochester and the Genesee Valley Inc., seeking to expand its facilities to provide outpatient abortion services, applied to respondent State Department of Health (hereinafter DOH) for a certificate of need, pursuant to Public Health Law § 2802(2). After administrative review, the application was approved and the certificate granted.

Petitioners, ministers and pastors of religious congregations in the Rochester area, initiated this CPLR article 78 proceeding to annul respondents' approval of Planned Parenthood's application. Respondents moved prior to answering for dismissal of the proceeding, contending that petitioners lack standing to sue. Supreme Court denied the motion and respondents appeal, having been given permission to do so by a Justice of this court.

The standing of a party to seek judicial review of a particular claim or controversy is a threshold matter which, once questioned, should ordinarily be resolved by the court before the merits are reached (see, Society of Plastics Indus. v. County of Suffolk, 77 N.Y.2d 761, 769, 570 N.Y.S.2d 778, 573 N.E.2d 1034; Matter of New York State Nurses Assn. v. Axelrod, 152 A.D.2d 888, 890, 544 N.Y.S.2d 236). If, however, resolution of the standing issue would have no effect on the outcome of an action or proceeding, as, for example, where the record is sufficiently developed for the reviewing court to determine that a dismissal is warranted on other grounds, a court may decline to address the standing question as academic (see, e.g., Matter of Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany v. New York State Dept. of Health, 66 N.Y.2d 948, 951, 498 N.Y.S.2d 780, 489 N.E.2d 749); that not being the case here, the question of petitioners' standing must be addressed.

A party does not have standing to contest an administrative determination unless he or she has in fact been injured by the decision. Moreover, to confer standing, the injury must fall within the "zone of interests" that the pertinent statute aims to protect or promote (see, Society of Plastics Indus. v. County of Suffolk, supra, 77 N.Y.2d at 772-773, 570 N.Y.S.2d 778, 573 N.E.2d 1034), and it must be different in degree or kind from that suffered by the general public (see, Matter of Sheehan v. Ambach, 136 A.D.2d 25, 28, 525 N.Y.S.2d 735, lv. denied 72 N.Y.2d 804, 532 N.Y.S.2d 369, 528 N.E.2d 521). Inasmuch as the petition does not allege any injury that meets these requirements, it must be dismissed.

Petitioners' claim of "injury" is predicated on their assertion that the approval of the facility, and the concomitant ...