Myers v. Schneiderman

Citation30 N.Y.3d 1,62 N.Y.S.3d 838,85 N.E.3d 57
Parties Sara MYERS et al., Plaintiffs, and Eric A. Seiff et al., Appellants, v. Eric SCHNEIDERMAN, in His Official Capacity as Attorney General of the State of New York, Respondent, et al., Defendants.
Decision Date07 September 2017
CourtNew York Court of Appeals

Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, New York City (Edwin G. Schallert, Jared I. Kagan and Olena Ripnick–O'Farrell of counsel), and Kathryn L. Tucker, End of Life Liberty Project, of the Washington bar, admitted pro hac vice, of counsel, for appellants.

Eric T. Schneiderman, Attorney General, New York City (Anisha S. Dasgupta, Barbara D. Underwood and Valerie Figueredo of counsel), for respondent.

Kelley Drye & Warren LLP, New York City (Robert E. Crotty of counsel), for Michael R. Aiello, M.D. and others, amici curiae.

Edward T. Mechmann, New York State Catholic Conference, New York City, amicus curiae.

Adam Prizio, Albany, for Not Dead Yet and others, amici curiae.

New York Civil Liberties Union Foundation, New York City (Beth Haroules and Arthur Eisenberg of counsel), for New York Civil Liberties Union, amicus curiae.

Alan A. Pfeffer, Glenmont, for Alan A. Pfeffer and another, amici curiae.

Mordechai Biser, Passaic, New Jersey and Avrohom Weinstock, Agudath Israel of America, New York City, for Agudath Israel of America, amicus curiae.

Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, New York City (Clay J. Pierce, Wilson M. Brown, III and Nicholas J. Stevens of counsel), for New York Chapter of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, amicus curiae.

Covington & Burling LLP, Washington, D.C. (Christina G. Kuhn of counsel), for American Medical Student Association and others, amici curiae.

Holland & Knight LLP, New York City (Michael B. Eisenberg of counsel), for Richard N. Gottfried and others, amici curiae.

Winston & Strawn LLP, New York City (Stephen L. Sheinfeld and Carla Kerr Stearns of counsel), for Betty Rollin and others, amici curiae.

Chaffetz Lindsey LLP, New York City (Steven C. Schwartz and Jungmin Cho of counsel), and Law Offices of Joshua L. Dratel, P.C., New York City (Joshua L. Dratel of counsel), for National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, amicus curiae.

Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, New York City (Stephen P. Younger and

Anthony C. DeCinque of counsel), for Vincent Bonventre and others, amici curiae.

Hennessey & Bienstock LLP, New York City (Patricia Hennessey of counsel), and Verrill Dana LLP, Boston, Massachusetts (Thomas O. Bean of counsel), for Unitarian Universalist Association and others, amici curiae.

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, New York City (David B. Bassett of counsel), and Kevin Díaz, Compassion & Choices, Portland, Oregon, for Compassion & Choices, amicus curiae.

OPINION OF THE COURT

PER CURIAM.

Plaintiffs ask us to declare a constitutional right to "aid-in-dying," which they define (and we refer to herein) as the right of a mentally competent and terminally ill person to obtain a prescription for a lethal dosage of drugs from a physician, to be taken at some point to cause death. Although New York has long recognized a competent adult's right to forgo life-saving medical care, we reject plaintiffs' argument that an individual has a fundamental constitutional right to aid-in-dying as they define it. We also reject plaintiffs' assertion that the State's prohibition on assisted suicide is not rationally related to legitimate state interests.

I. Factual and Procedural History

Plaintiffs filed the instant action against New York State's Attorney General and several district attorneys,1 requesting declaratory and injunctive relief to permit "aid-in-dying," whereby a mentally competent, terminally ill patient may obtain a prescription from a physician to cause death. Plaintiffs request a declaratory judgment that physicians who provide aid-in-dying in this manner are not criminally liable under the State's assisted suicide statutesPenal Law §§ 120.30 and 125.15(3).2 They further request an injunction prohibiting the prosecution of physicians who issue such prescriptions to terminally ill, mentally competent patients.

When the complaint was filed, plaintiffs included three mentally competent patients, two of whom were terminally ill, and one of whom was being treated for cancer

. The terminally ill plaintiffs have died, and the patient undergoing treatment is in remission. Plaintiffs also include individual medical providers who assert that fear of prosecution has prevented them from exercising their best professional judgment when counseling and treating their patients. They are joined by organizational plaintiff End of Life Choices, which sued on its own behalf and on behalf of its clients, for whom it provides "information and counseling on informed choices in end-of-life decision-making."

The Attorney General moved to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that plaintiffs failed to state a cause of action and did not present a justiciable controversy (see CPLR 3211[a][7], [2] ). Supreme Court granted the motion ( 2015 N.Y. Slip Op. 31931[U], 2015 WL 6126959 [2015] ), and plaintiffs appealed. The Appellate Division modified on the law, declaring that the assisted suicide statutes provide a valid statutory basis to prosecute physicians who provide aid-in-dying and that the statutes do not violate the State Constitution, and as so modified, affirmed ( 140 A.D.3d 51, 65, 31 N.Y.S.3d 45 [1st Dept.2016] ). Plaintiffs appealed to this Court as of right, pursuant to CPLR 5601(b)(1).

On appeal, plaintiffs argue that the State's assisted suicide statutes do not prohibit aid-in-dying as a matter of law, and that the Appellate Division's "literal" interpretation of the statutes is flawed. Alternatively, plaintiffs contend that application of the assisted suicide statutes to aid-in-dying violates their equal protection and due process rights under the State Constitution.

II. Reviewability

"On a motion to dismiss pursuant to CPLR 3211, the pleading is to be afforded a liberal construction" ( Leon v. Martinez, 84 N.Y.2d 83, 87–88, 614 N.Y.S.2d 972, 638 N.E.2d 511 [1994], citing CPLR 3026 ). "We accept the facts as alleged in the complaint as true, accord plaintiffs the benefit of every possible favorable inference, and determine only whether the facts as alleged fit within any cognizable legal theory" (id.). "[H]owever, ‘allegations consisting of bare legal conclusions as well as factual claims flatly contradicted by documentary evidence are not entitled to any such consideration’ " ( Simkin v. Blank, 19 N.Y.3d 46, 52, 945 N.Y.S.2d 222, 968 N.E.2d 459 [2012], quoting Maas v. Cornell Univ., 94 N.Y.2d 87, 91, 699 N.Y.S.2d 716, 721 N.E.2d 966 [1999] ; see Connaughton v. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc., 29 N.Y.3d 137, 141–142, 53 N.Y.S.3d 598, 75 N.E.3d 1159 [2017] ).

We reject plaintiffs' argument that the lower courts improperly resolved numerous factual issues. This case involves questions of law, including: whether aid-in-dying constitutes assisted suicide within the meaning of the Penal Law; whether a competent terminally ill person has a fundamental right to physician-assisted suicide; and whether denying a competent, terminally ill patient aid-in-dying violates that patient's right to equal treatment under the law. As there are no countervailing reasonable interpretations, these questions can be decided without any factual development.

III. Plaintiffs' Statutory Claim

Plaintiffs initially assert that we should interpret the assisted suicide statutes to exclude physicians who provide aid-in-dying. Such a reading would run counter to our fundamental tenets of statutory construction, and would require that we read into the statutes words and meaning wholly absent from their text (see Majewski v. Broadalbin–Perth Cent. School Dist., 91 N.Y.2d 577, 583, 673 N.Y.S.2d 966, 696 N.E.2d 978 [1998] ).

"The governing rule of statutory construction is that courts are obliged to interpret a statute to effectuate the intent of the Legislature, and when the statutory language is clear and unambiguous, it should be construed so as to give effect to the plain meaning of the words used" ( People v. Finnegan, 85 N.Y.2d 53, 58, 623 N.Y.S.2d 546, 647 N.E.2d 758 [1995] [internal quotation marks and brackets omitted] ). "[C]ourts may not reject a literal construction [of a statute] unless it is evident that a literal construction does not correctly reflect the legislative intent" (Matter of Schinasi, 277 N.Y. 252, 259, 14 N.E.2d 58 [1938] ).

"Suicide" is not defined in the Penal Law, and therefore "we must give the term its ordinary and commonly understood meaning" ( People v. Ocasio, 28 N.Y.3d 178, 181, 43 N.Y.S.3d 228, 65 N.E.3d 1263 [2016] [internal quotation marks omitted] ). Suicide has long been understood as "the act or an instance of taking one's own life voluntarily and intentionally" (Webster's Collegiate Dictionary 1249 [11th ed. 2003]; see 2 Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language [1828] ). Black's Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014) defines "suicide" as "[t]he act of taking one's own life," and "assisted suicide" as "[t]he intentional act of providing a person with the medical means or the medical knowledge to commit suicide." Aid-in-dying falls squarely within the ordinary meaning of the statutory prohibition on assisting a suicide.

The assisted suicide statutes apply to anyone who assists an attempted or completed suicide. There are no exceptions, and the statutes are unqualified in scope, creating an "irrefutable inference ... that what is omitted or not included was intended to be omitted or excluded" ( People v. Jackson, 87 N.Y.2d 782, 788, 642 N.Y.S.2d 602, 665 N.E.2d 172 [1996] [internal quotation marks omitted] ). Furthermore, this Court previously resolved any doubt as to the scope of the ban on assisted suicide. In People v. Duffy, we explained that " section 125.15(3)'s proscription against intentionally causing or aiding a suicide applies even where the defendant is motivated by ‘sympathetic’ concerns, such as the desire to relieve a...

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2 cases
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