McCain v. Koch

• Citation: 517 N.Y.S.2d 918,70 N.Y.2d 109,511 N.E.2d 62
• Parties: , 511 N.E.2d 62 Yvonne McCAIN et al., on Behalf of Themselves and Their Children and All Others Similarly Situated, Appellants, Donna Keyes et al., Intervenors-Appellants, Carolyn Lee et al., Proposed Intervenors-Appellants, and Linda James et al., on Behalf of Themselves and Their Children and All Others Similarly Situated, Intervenors, v. Edward I. KOCH, as Mayor of the City of New York, et al., Respondents, et al., Defendant.
• Decision Date: 04 June 1987
• Court: New York Court of Appeals

Page 918

517 N.Y.S.2d 918

70 N.Y.2d 109, 511 N.E.2d 62

Yvonne McCAIN et al., on Behalf of Themselves and Their

Children and All Others Similarly Situated, Appellants,

Donna Keyes et al., Intervenors-Appellants,

Carolyn Lee et al., Proposed Intervenors-Appellants,

and

Linda James et al., on Behalf of Themselves and Their

Children and All Others Similarly Situated, Intervenors, v. Edward I. KOCH, as Mayor of the City of New York, et al.,

Respondents, et al., Defendant.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Argued April 22, 1987.

Decided June 4, 1987.

Steven Banks, Kalman Finkel, John E. Kirklin, Scott A. Rosenberg, Helaine Barnett, Arthur J. Fried, Shawn P. Leary and Matthew Diller, New York City, for appellants, intervenors-appellants and proposed intervenors-appellants

Samuel J. Silverman, Jay Greenfield, Rachel Pollock, Jan Kleeman and Robert M. Hayes, New York City, for intervenors.

Peter L. Zimroth, Corporation Counsel (Barry P. Schwartz, Leonard Koerner and Fay Leoussis, New York City, of counsel), for respondents.

James G. Sweeney, Co. Atty., for Orange County and others, amici curiae.

OPINION OF THE COURT

HANCOCK, Judge.

This appeal concerns the power of Supreme Court to fashion equitable relief. The sole issue is whether the court has power to issue a preliminary injunction requiring New York City Departments of Social Services (DSS) and Housing, Preservation and Development (HPD), when they have undertaken to provide emergency housing for homeless families with children, to provide housing which satisfies minimum standards of sanitation, safety and decency. We hold that Supreme Court has such power. Accordingly, that part of the order of the Appellate Division which vacated the preliminary injunction issued by Supreme Court should be reversed and the case remitted to the Appellate Division for further proceedings.

I

The appeal involves a portion of one of five separate orders of Supreme Court reviewed at the Appellate Division in consolidated appeals (see, McCain v. Koch, 117 A.D.2d 198, 502 N.Y.S.2d 720) in litigation pertaining to various aspects of the immensely difficult human, social and governmental problems presented in New York City and other large urban areas by the plight of homeless destitute families with children. ¹ Plaintiffs who sought and obtained the injunction are destitute families who have been granted and are receiving emergency housing aid (127 Misc.2d 23, 484 N.Y.S.2d 985). ² In their complaint seeking an order compelling defendants to provide them with "safe, suitable and adequate emergency housing", plaintiffs describe specific conditions encountered by families lodged in hotels and motels ³ including instances of rooms without furniture, bedding or appliances, apartments without adequate heat, hot water, plumbing or electricity, and unguarded buildings infested with rodents and vermin and plagued with crime. Defendants reject any suggestion that they are indifferent to the plight of the homeless and cite, among other documents, the 1987 Report of the Mayor's Advisory Task Force on the Homeless as evidence that the City is doing "a 'creditable job' in what the Advisory Task Force described as the 'monumental task' of housing and feeding a homeless population which has now grown to 27,000 people" (respondent's brief, at 5). Plaintiffs reject these conclusions and assert that defendants still do not provide "emergency housing that meets the most basic standards of civilized society" (appellant's reply brief, at 1).

The order (Sup.Ct., N.Y. County, entered June 27, 1984) which the Appellate Division modified grants a preliminary injunction to plaintiffs compelling defendants to provide emergency housing conforming to minimal standards. The limited question certified to us by the Appellate Division is whether it properly modified that order on the law by denying the motion for a preliminary injunction and vacating the provision granting it.

The injunction of June 27, 1984 does not direct defendants to provide housing where none is being provided. It applies only "a family is not denied emergency housing, assistance and services" (emphasis added). Its provisions, insofar as they prescribe minimal standards, are:

"DSS and HPD shall, arrange so far as is practicable in the placement in emergency housing, that such housing:

"a. contains a bed for each family member, or a crib in the case of an infant, with a clean mattress and pillow and with clean and sufficient sheets and blankets;

"b. contains a sufficient number of clean towels;

"c. contains sufficient space for the family based on City laws governing residential units [citation omitted];

"d. has accessible to it a sanitary bathroom with hot water;

"e. is sufficiently heated pursuant to City law;

"contains basic furniture essential for daily living;

"has window guards as required by the laws governing residential multiple dwellings;

"has locks on the emergency housing unit's outside doors".

These minimum standard provisions were first imposed by Supreme Court on June 20, 1983 as an interim order and subsequently continued in effect by the order of June 27, 1984. It is significant that approximately three and one-half months after the issuance of the June 20, 1983 interim order, the substance of the minimum standards in the injunction was included in more rigorous departmental regulations for hotels and motels used for emergency housing promulgated by the Commissioner of Social Services (18 NYCRR 352.3eff. Oct. 6, 1983).

The Appellate Division vacated the injunction "reluctantly" on constraint of our decision in Matter of Bernstein v. Toia, 43 N.Y.2d 437, 402 N.Y.S.2d 342, 373 N.E.2d 238). In concluding that under Bernstein "the adequacy of the level of welfare benefits is a matter committed to the discretion of the Legislature" (117 A.D.2d, at 216, 502 N.Y.S.2d 720) and that it was, therefore, "unable to afford the plaintiffs complete and meaningful relief" (id.), the Appellate Division commented (at 216, 502 N.Y.S.2d 720): "The inability of courts to set even minimum standards for meeting 'the legitimate needs of each recipient' (see, Matter of Bernstein v. Toia, supra, 43 N.Y.2d at p. 449, 402 N.Y.S.2d 342, 373 N.E.2d 238) upon the failure of the Legislature to do so is discouraging, saddening, and disheartening."

For reasons which follow, we now reverse. The certified question is answered in the negative.

II

There is no question that in a proper case Supreme Court has power as a court of equity to grant a temporary injunction which mandates specific conduct by municipal agencies (see, CPLR 6301; Bachman v. Harrington, 184 N.Y. 458, 462-464, 77 N.E. 657; Tucker v. Toia, 54 A.D.2d 322, 324-326, 388 N.Y.S.2d 475; Graham v. Board of Supervisors, 49 Misc.2d 459, 267 N.Y.S.2d 383, mod. on other grounds 25 A.D.2d 250-254, 269 N.Y.S.2d 477, appeal dismissed 17 N.Y.2d 866, 271 N.Y.S.2d 295, 218 N.E.2d 332; 7A Weinstein-Korn-Miller, N.Y.Civ.Prac. p 6301.06; 12 Carmody-Wait 2d, N.Y.Prac. § 78:24; 17 McQuillin, Municipal Corporations § 49.50 see also, Klostermann v. Cuomo, 61 N.Y.2d 525, 530-531, 475 N.Y.S.2d 247, 463 N.E.2d 588; and Matter of Jones v. Berman, 37 N.Y.2d 42, 57, 371 N.Y.S.2d 422, 332 N.E.2d 303 Lexington & Fortieth Corp. v. Callaghan, 281 N.Y. 526 530-532, 24 N.E.2d 316 ). Defendants contend, however, that notwithstanding the power of Supreme Court to grant injunctive relief, it could not lawfully do so here. They advance three main reasons.

A

Defendants argue that the issue of Supreme Court's power to grant the injunction (contained originally in the interim order of June 20, 1983 and continued in the order of June 27, 1984) became moot when the Department of Social Services adopted the substance of the injunction standards in promulgating its own more detailed and stringent minimum standards for hotels/motels used as emergency housing to be effective on October 6, 1983 (18 NYCRR 352.3). They claim that plaintiffs, with the Commissioner's adoption of these regulations, have, in effect, won their lawsuit and that consideration of questions concerning the court's power to grant the injunction is now unnecessary. Defendants overlook a cardinal point. It is not the words of the standards, whether in the injunction or the regulations, but compliance with them which will produce the minimally adequate housing to which these plaintiffs are entitled. Because the Appellate Division concluded, as a matter of law, that Supreme Court lacked power to establish minimum standards of habitability, it did not pass on the issues pertaining to defendants' alleged noncompliance with the standards or to the need for an propriety of the court's injunction compelling such compliance (CPLR 6301). Until such questions have been judicially addressed and resolved, plaintiffs' action seeking injunctive relief cannot be moot.

B

Defendants contend next that they have no legal obligation to provide plaintiffs "with any emergency housing" under State or Federal constitutional or statutory law. Without such underlying obligation, the argument goes, there can be no substantive basis for an injunction compelling compliance with minimum standards. The argument misconstrues the scope and effect of the order before us. The injunction stands or falls irrespective of the existence of such underlying obligation; it benefits only those families who have qualified for and are receiving emergency housing aid and the direction that the housing must meet prescribed minimum standards applies only when DSS and HPD have undertaken to provide the housing.

The Appellate Division recognized this limited application of the June 27, 1984 injunction in its characterization of Supreme Court's action in granting it: "Without reaching the constitutional and statutory issues, except to note the absence of an explicit mandate, Justice Greenfield held (p 24) 'once the defendants have undertaken to provide emergency shelter, whether for 30 days pursuant to...