Legal Aid Society v. City of New York
| Decision Date | 18 September 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. 96 Civ. 5141(SHS).,No. 96 Civ. 8137(SHS).,96 Civ. 5141(SHS).,96 Civ. 8137(SHS). |
| Citation | 114 F.Supp.2d 204 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York |
| Parties | THE LEGAL AID SOCIETY, Plaintiff, v. The CITY OF NEW YORK, The Office of the Criminal Justice Coordinator of the City of New York, Rudolph W. Giuliani, as Mayor of the City of New York, Katherine N. Lapp, as the Criminal Justice Coordinator of the City of New York, Steven M. Fishner, as the current Criminal Justice Coordinator of the City of New York, Queens Law Associates, P.C., Brooklyn Defender Services, New York County Defender Services, Inc., Bronx Defenders, Battiste, Aronowsky & Suchow, Appellate Advocates, Center for Appellate Litigation, Defendants. Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, Local 2325, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, UAW, AFL — CIO/CLC, 1199 National Health and Human Services Employees Union, AFL — CIO/CLC, Plaintiffs, v. City of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, as Mayor of the City of New York, Katherine N. Lapp, as Criminal Justice Coordinator of the City of New York, Defendants. |
D. Stuart Meiklejohn, New York, NY, for Plaintiff.
Lewis Steven Finkelman, Corporation Counsel of the City, New York, NY, for Defendants City of New York, Office of Criminal Justice of New York, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Katherine N. Lapp.
Lynn W. Fahey, Queens Law Associates, P.C., New York, NY, for Defendants Queens Law Associates, P.C., Brooklyn Defender Services, Appellate Advocates.
Robert S. Dean, New York, NY, for Defendants New York County Defender Services, Inc., Bronx Defenders, Battiste, Aronowsky & Suchow, Center for Appellate Litigation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ............................................................. 210
BACKGROUND ............................................................... 211
DISCUSSION ............................................................... 212
I. Applicable standard ............................................... 212
A. Judgment on the pleadings ...................................... 212
B. Summary judgment ............................................... 213
II. Standing .......................................................... 213
A. Associational standing of the Unions to seek money damages on
behalf of Union members ........................................ 213
B. Statutory standing of the Unions to seek relief on behalf of
Legal Aid ...................................................... 214
C. Contractual standing of the Unions ............................. 216
D. "Disappointed bidder" standing of Legal Aid .................... 216
III. Statute of limitations, joinder, and injunctive relief ............ 217
A. Statute of limitations ......................................... 218
B. Joinder ........................................................ 219
1. Necessary parties ........................................... 219
2. Indispensable parties ....................................... 220
C. Substantial performance ........................................ 221
IV. Exhaustion of administrative remedies ............................. 222
V. Waiver ............................................................ 223
A. Law of the case ................................................ 224
B. Duress and estoppel ............................................ 225
C. The Unions and their members ................................... 226
D. First Amendment rights ......................................... 226
E. National Labor Relations Act rights ............................ 228
F. New York rights ................................................ 229
VI. Section 1983 liability ............................................ 231
A. Legislative immunity ........................................... 231
B. Municipal liability ............................................ 231
1. Budgetary authority ......................................... 232
2. Contract procurement authority .............................. 233
VII. First Amendment claim ............................................. 234
VIII. National Labor Relations Act claim ................................ 234
A. Pre-strike interaction ......................................... 235
B. Post-strike interaction ........................................ 236
CONCLUSION ............................................................... 240
These related actions, both brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, present a number of federal and pendent state claims arising from a dispute between the City of New York and the entities with whom it contracts to provide legal services to indigent criminal defendants. In the first action, the Legal Aid Society ("Legal Aid") alleges that the City of New York, the Criminal Justice Coordinator of the City of New York, Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, former Criminal Justice Coordinator Katherine N. Lapp, and current Criminal Justice Coordinator Steven M. Fishner (collectively, the "City" or the "municipal defendants") violated Legal Aid's state and federal rights by interfering with a labor dispute between Legal Aid and the unions that represent its employees and by subsequently transferring business from Legal Aid to Queens Law Associates, P.C., Brooklyn Defender Services, New York County Defender Services, Inc., Bronx Defenders, Battiste, Aranowsky & Suchow, Appellate Advocates, and the Center for Appellate Litigation (collectively, the "provider defendants").
Specifically, Legal Aid contends that the City interfered with federal labor rights protected by the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA"), retaliated against Legal Aid and its agents for the exercise of their free speech rights pursuant to the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, breached the City's contract with Legal Aid, and violated state and local laws governing the distribution of municipal contracts. In the second action, premised on the same nucleus of facts, plaintiffs Association of Legal Aid Attorneys, Local 2325, United Automobile, Aerospace and Agricultural Implement Workers of America, UAW, AFL — CIO/CLC and 1199 National Health and Human Services Employees Union, AFL — CIO/CLC (collectively, the "Unions"), who respectively represent the staff attorneys and support staff employed by Legal Aid, allege that the actions of the City, the Mayor, and Ms. Lapp violated the Unions' and their members' rights pursuant to the NLRA and the First Amendment.
Following limited discovery proceedings, the City and the provider defendants have moved for judgment on the pleadings pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b), or in the alternative for summary judgment pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c), dismissing the complaints in both actions. For the reasons set forth below, defendants' motions are granted in part and denied in part. In addition, certain portions of the motions are denied with leave to renew upon the completion of discovery in order that those motions may be decided with the benefit of a more complete record in both actions.
On September 30, 1994, the collective bargaining agreement between Legal Aid and the Association of Legal Aid Attorneys (the "union") expired. According to the complaints, Mayor Giuliani proposed to displace Legal Aid and to cancel its City-wide contract as the principal provider of legal services to the indigent if it negotiated a wage increase with the union, even if Legal Aid were able to fund the increase without recourse to additional funding from the City. Because of the risk of displacement, Legal Aid decided not to respond to the union's demand for a wage increase. As a result, the unionized attorneys walked off the job at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, October 1, 1994. Despite the fact that Legal Aid attorneys had struck seven times previously in Legal Aid's 30-year contractual relationship with the City, on this occasion the Mayor directed the termination of all Legal Aid contracts with the City on the grounds that Legal Aid had violated its ethical obligation to provide legal representation to indigent persons since its attorneys were on strike.
Three days after the strike began, the Mayor stated that he would consider entering into a new contract with Legal Aid, but only if the contract included a no-strike provision, permitted the City to contract with other legal service providers, and barred attorneys who did not return to work from any further representation paid for by the City. The strike ended four days later, and the union signed a four-year contract with Legal Aid that included a no-strike provision. In late October, the Mayor gave formal 90-days' notice of the termination of the City's contract with Legal Aid. On February 3, 1995, the City and Legal Aid entered into a "Modification Agreement" that altered the terms of the previous contract by expressly granting the City the authority to "arrange for other entities to provide services to replace the services hereunder."
In October 1995, the City issued a Request for Proposals (the "First RFP") soliciting bids for municipal contracts for the provision of legal services to indigent persons. Addendum Four to this First RFP explicitly excluded Legal Aid from participation by providing that any "proposal submitted by the Legal Aid Society would be deemed not responsive." In June 1996, the City awarded contracts pursuant to the First RFP to defendants Queens Law Associates, P.C., Brooklyn Defender Services, and Appellate Advocates. In November 1996, the City issued a Second RFP, that also specifically excluded Legal Aid and that resulted in the award of contracts in May 1997 to defendants New York County Defender Services,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Putnam v. Town of Saugus, Mass., No. CIV.A.03-12062-WGY.
...policymaking authority of both "authorized" and "subordinate" decision-makers. See id. (plurality opinion); Legal Aid Soc'y v. City of New York, 114 F.Supp.2d 204, 233 (S.D.N.Y.2000) (observing that under Praprotnik, to the extent a mayor's decisions were constrained by a separate municipal......
-
Chiaravallo v. Middletown Transit Dist.
...arising in part out of the Mayor's threats to cancel city contracts with the Legal Aid Society (a legal services provider). 114 F. Supp. 2d 204, 210 (S.D.N.Y. 2000). After analyzing the provisions of the Charter of the City of New York, the Legal Aid Court held that the City could not be he......
-
Metropolitan Milwaukee Ass'n v. Milwaukee County
...stating that evidence of subjective motive is not relevant to market participant exception to preemption); Legal Aid Soc'y v. City of New York, 114 F.Supp.2d 204, 237 (S.D.N.Y.2000) (stating that "the subjective motivation of a state actor is irrelevant to preemption analysis, which instead......
-
Murray v. Town of N. Hempstead
...a federally guaranteed constitutional right is, of course, a federal question controlled by federal law.’ ” Legal Aid Soc. v. City of New York, 114 F.Supp.2d 204, 226 (S.D.N.Y.2000) (quoting Brookhart v. Janis, 384 U.S. 1, 4, 86 S.Ct. 1245, 16 L.Ed.2d 314 (1966)); Kreuter v. Reuter, No. 01 ......