Matter of County of Oswego v. Travis

• Decision Date: 03 March 2005
• Docket Number: 95631.
• Parties: In the Matter of COUNTY OF OSWEGO et al., Respondents, v. BRION D. TRAVIS, as Chair of the New York State Board of Parole, et al., Appellants.
• Court: New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division

16 A.D.3d 733

791 N.Y.S.2d 189

2005 NY Slip Op 01582

In the Matter of COUNTY OF OSWEGO et al., Respondents, v. BRION D. TRAVIS, as Chair of the New York State Board of Parole, et al., Appellants.

95631.

Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Third Department.

March 3, 2005.

Appeal from a judgment and amended judgment of the Supreme Court (Kavanagh, J.), entered December 9, 2003 and December 29, 2003 in Albany County, which partially granted petitioners' application, in a proceeding pursuant to CPLR article 78, to, inter alia, compel respondents to pay the cost of housing parole violators.

Mugglin, J.

Petitioners, in this CPLR article 78 proceeding, are two counties, their respective sheriffs and the New York State Association of Counties (hereinafter NYSAC), a nonprofit municipal corporation appearing on behalf of its 62 member counties. In this proceeding, they seek declaratory and monetary relief, claiming that Executive Law § 259-i (3) (a) (ii) requires respondents to reimburse localities for the cost of housing persons who violate parole, regardless of whether the parolees are also being detained on local criminal charges. The relief sought includes a declaration that respondents' interpretation of the statute was null and void, a permanent injunction prohibiting respondents from following the parole manual guideline and an order requiring respondents to pay arrears to all the counties in the state in accordance with petitioners' interpretation of the statute.

Respondents moved to dismiss the petition, alleging, among other things, that petitioners lack standing and capacity to sue. Supreme Court found that petitioners have standing, but did not address the issue of capacity. The court subsequently granted the petition, in part, finding, among other things, that reimbursement under this statute was governed by whether the parolee is initially detained for a parole violation or initially detained on a local criminal charge and ordered respondents to pay arrears. Respondents now appeal arguing that the court erred in denying their motion to dismiss the petition and in partially granting petitioners' application.^*

To establish standing to sue, NYSAC must demonstrate "that at least one of its members would have standing to sue, that it is representative of the organizational purposes it asserts and that the case would not require the participation of individual members" (New York State Assn. of Nurse Anesthetists v Novello, 2 NY3d 207, 211 [2004]). Respondents contend only that recalculation of each county's reimbursement figures requires the participation of each individual county. Apart from this pure accounting procedure, however, no county is necessarily required to directly take part in this proceeding as a litigant in order to fully adjudicate the matter and be granted the relief requested (see Matter of Aeneas McDonald Police Benevolent Assn. v City of Geneva, 92 NY2d 326, 331 [1998]).

However, NYSAC lacks legal capacity to sue, i.e., the "`power to appear and bring its grievance before the court'" (Silver v Pataki, 96 NY2d 532, 537 [2001], quoting Community Bd. 7 of Borough of Manhattan v Schaffer, 84 NY2d 148, 155 [1994]), an issue separate and distinct from the question of standing. As a general rule, municipal corporate bodies, as subdivisions of the state, cannot contest the actions of the state which affect them in their governmental capacity or as representatives of their inhabitants (see City of New York v State of New York, 86 NY2d 286, 289-290 [1995]). By extension, representatives of municipal corporate bodies, such as NYSAC, are equally without legal authority to challenge state action, unless they invoke one of the recognized exceptions to the rule, namely, "(1) an express statutory authorization to bring such a suit . . . (2) where the [s]tate legislation adversely affects a municipality's proprietary interest in a specific fund of moneys . . . (3) where a [s]tate statute impinges upon `Home Rule' powers of a municipality constitutionally guaranteed under article IX of the State Constitution . . . and (4) where `the municipal challengers assert that if they are obliged to comply with the [s]tate statute they will by that very compliance be forced to violate a constitutional proscription'" (City of New York v State of New York, supra at 291-292, quoting Matter of Jeter v Ellenville Cent. School Dist., 41 NY2d 283, 287 [1977] [citations omitted])....