Leeds v. Metropolitan Transp. Authority

• Decision Date: 14 January 1983
• Citation: 117 Misc.2d 329,460 N.Y.S.2d 219
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Term
• Parties: Oliver LEEDS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY and New York City Transit Authority, Defendants-Respondents.

Page 219

460 N.Y.S.2d 219

117 Misc.2d 329

Oliver LEEDS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY and New York City Transit Authority, Defendants-Respondents.

Supreme Court, Appellate Term,

First Department.

Jan. 14, 1983.

Le Boeuf, Lamb, Leiby & MacRae, New York City (Thomas G. Rohback and Samuel J. Abate, Jr., New York City, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellant.

Richard K. Bernard, James P. McMahon, Walter J. McCarroll and Steve S. Efron, Brooklyn, for defendants-respondents.

Before HUGHES, J.P., and RICCOBONO and SULLIVAN, JJ.

PER CURIAM:

Order entered July 13, 1982, affirmed, with $10 costs.

In this action, originally begun in the small claims part and subsequently removed to the regular county division of Civil Court, plaintiff seeks a recovery of $15 from defendant New York City Transit Authority as a refund for subway token purchases. It is claimed that defendant provided persistently late train service and permitted unsanitary, unsafe, and overcrowded conditions on its trains during the period May 1981--November 1981. The essence of plaintiff's lawsuit is that the Transit Authority thereby breached its implied contract to transport him arising from the sale and purchase of a token, and that there is no specific statute exempting the defendant from ordinary, common law contract liability.

Special Term, 114 Misc.2d 797, 452 N.Y.S.2d 551 dismissed the complaint on the ground that no cause of action was stated, and we affirm. At the outset, it is at once apparent that however the relationship between the Transit Authority and the subway rider may be defined, it does not easily fit within the mold of familiar contract concepts. Of course one may recover what has been paid where there is a substantial failure of performance by the contracting party, but in this instance the consideration charged the user bears no logical relationship to the cost of a facility operated "not for gain but for service and convenience .... The 20-cent payment [obviously an old case] is a tiny admission tax imposed on the user." (People v. St. Clair, 56 Misc.2d 326, 328, 288 N.Y.S.2d 388).

More significantly, the defendant is a "public benefit corporation" (General Construction Law, § 66, subd. 4) "performing a governmental function" (Public Authorities Law, § 1202, subd. 2; § 1264, subd. 2). In the performance of governmental functions, services are rendered to the public generally for the benefit the public as a whole, but absent a special relationship or unless an individual, private obligation is shown to exist, those services are not owed to any specific individual and individual...