Thomas v. City of New York
| Decision Date | 28 April 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 97-7822,97-7822 |
| Citation | 143 F.3d 31 |
| Parties | Mervyn THOMAS, Minority Livery Owners and Drivers Coalition, Neville Cooper, and Hispanic Coalition of Base Owners, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. CITY OF NEW YORK, Diane McGrath-McKechnie, as Commissioner of the Taxi and Limousine Commission of the City of New York, Taxi and Limousine Commission of the City of New York, and New York City Council, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Victor A. Worms, Brooklyn, NY, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Stuart D. Smith, for Jeffrey D. Friedlander, Acting Corp. Counsel of City of New York, New York City (Barry P. Schwartz, of counsel), for Defendants-Appellees.
Before: WINTER, Chief Judge, and McLAUGHLIN and CALABRESI, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiffs-appellants, two associations of minority livery car base station owners (the Minority Livery Owners and Drivers Coalition, and the Hispanic Coalition of Base Owners) and two individual owners (Mervyn Thomas and Neville Cooper), brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action challenging the constitutionality of New York City Local Law No. 51 and the regulations promulgated under it by the City's Taxi and Limousine Commission ("TLC").
The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (John S. Martin, Jr., Judge ) denied plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction, which sought to bar the enforcement of Local Law No. 51, and granted defendants' cross-motion to dismiss the complaint, pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). Plaintiffs appeal the dismissal. 1
Local Law No. 51 amended the Administrative Code of the City of New York with respect to the licensing requirements for base stations that dispatch livery cars. Base stations are central facilities that manage, organize, or dispatch for-hire vehicles. Livery cars are only one type of licensed for-hire vehicles that serve the residents of New York City. They are distinguished from "black cars" and "luxury limousines" (other types of for-hire vehicles), each of which must certify to the TLC that more than ninety percent of their business is compensated in ways other than through direct cash payments by passengers.
Prior to the enactment of Local Law No. 51 (on May 26, 1996), livery car base station operators were subject to the same licensing requirements as black car and luxury limousine base station operators. And, as to both, renewal was pretty much automatic upon the TLC's receipt of a pre-printed renewal form and a five hundred dollar payment. Local Law No. 51, however, imposed additional requirements upon livery car base station operators only. These requirements include: (1) that base stations must provide one off-street parking space for every two vehicles they dispatch; 2 (2) that the TLC, through a discretionary review process, must evaluate, inter alia, the costs and benefits of providing livery car services in a particular neighborhood, and the "fitness" of the particular applicant; 3 3 and (3) that a $5000 bond must be posted to guarantee that the City will be able to collect civil fines incurred by drivers affiliated with the base station.
In their appeal from the dismissal of the complaint, plaintiffs seek permanently to enjoin the enforcement of Local Law No. 51 and its regulations and ask that both be declared unconstitutional and in violation of plaintiffs' rights (1) to procedural due process; (2) to equal protection of the laws; and (3) to substantive due process. Plaintiffs claim that Local Law No. 51 contravenes procedural due process by delegating adjudicative authority to the TLC to determine whether to issue and to renew base station licenses without providing for an administrative hearing before a license is denied. Plaintiffs assert that Local Law No. 51 violates equal protection of the laws by unfairly discriminating against livery car base station operators, who are alleged to be predominantly African Americans and Hispanics. This, plaintiffs claim, is done through the imposition of more stringent licensing requirements on livery car base station operators than are imposed on other for-hire base stations that are allegedly owned primarily by Whites. Finally, plaintiffs claim that the $5000 bond requirement infringes substantive due process by placing vicarious liability on base station operators for the criminal acts of their affiliated car drivers, who are, it is said, independent contractors.
We vacate the district court's dismissal, on the merits, of plaintiffs' procedural due process claim, and dismiss the claim on jurisdictional grounds, because it is not ripe for review and hence is not justiciable. And we affirm the district court's dismissal of the equal protection and substantive due process allegations for failure to state claims upon which relief can be granted.
To be justiciable, plaintiffs' claims must be ripe for federal review. See AMSAT Cable Ltd. v. Cablevision of Connecticut Ltd. Partnership, 6 F.3d 867, 872 (2d Cir.1993). The ripeness doctrine protects the government from "judicial interference until a[ ] ... decision has been formalized and its effects felt in a concrete way by the challenging parties." Abbott Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148-49, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 1515, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967), overruled on other grounds, Califano v. Sanders, 430 U.S. 99, 97 S.Ct. 980, 51 L.Ed.2d 192 (1977). Moreover, an Article III court "cannot entertain a claim which is based upon 'contingent future events that may not occur as anticipated, or indeed may not occur at all.' " Oriental Health Spa v. City of Fort Wayne, 864 F.2d 486, 489 (7th Cir.1988) (quoting Thomas v. Union Carbide Agric. Prods. Co., 473 U.S. 568, 580-81, 105 S.Ct. 3325, 3333, 87 L.Ed.2d 409 (1985)). Thus, when resolution of an issue turns on whether "there are nebulous future events so contingent in nature that there is no certainty they will ever occur," the case is not ripe for adjudication. In re Drexel Burnham Lambert Group Inc., 995 F.2d 1138, 1146 (2d Cir.1993).
Because the "ripeness doctrine is drawn both from Article III limitations on judicial power and from prudential reasons for refusing to exercise jurisdiction," the court can raise it sua sponte, and, indeed, can do so for the first time on appeal. Reno v. Catholic Soc. Servs., Inc., 509 U.S. 43, 58 n. 18, 113 S.Ct. 2485, 2496 n. 18, 125 L.Ed.2d 38 (1993). It is, therefore, of no moment that the defendants in this case have failed to argue the issue.
Assuming arguendo (as did the district court below) that plaintiffs have a property or liberty interest in the continued renewal of their licenses, it is, nonetheless, premature for us to decide whether the TLC's process of license issuance and renewal violates due process. None of the plaintiffs has, to date, been denied a license. And, while on the face of Local Law No. 51 and its regulations, no proceedings--either written findings or oral hearings--are mandated prior to the denial of licenses or of license renewals, we do not know at this time what procedures the TLC will in fact follow before denying licenses. It follows that a claim that a base station operator has been denied a license renewal without procedural due process is best considered in the context of a specific factual setting.
In Coffran v. Board of Trustees, 46 F.3d 3 (2d Cir.1995) (per curiam), we held that a due process claim arising out of a medical board's recommendation that a police sergeant be involuntarily retired was not ripe for review where the final decisionmaking board had not ruled on the recommendation. We there stated:
Under Article III of the Constitution, it is "axiomatic" that this Court may not exercise jurisdiction over a dispute unless the plaintiff shows " 'that he personally has suffered some actual or threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of the defendant.' " Where the challenged procedures have not been applied to the claimant, ... the Article III requirements have not been met.
Id. at 4 (citations omitted). The same principles apply in the instant case.
There are, of course, some limited situations in which preenforcement review of the validity of a statute or regulation is warranted. This occurs principally when an individual would, in the absence of court review, be faced with a choice between risking likely criminal prosecution entailing serious consequences, or forgoing potentially lawful behavior. For as the Supreme Court has said, in deciding whether a case is ripe, two factors must be considered: (1) "the hardship to the parties of withholding court consideration," and (2) "the fitness of the issues for judicial decision." Abbott Labs., 387 U.S. at 149, 87 S.Ct. at 1515. 4
In the instant case, not one of plaintiffs' licenses has been denied. As a result, plaintiffs have not, as yet, suffered any harm to their procedural due process rights. Nor does any immediate hardship befall the parties if preenforcement review is denied. See State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Dole, 802 F.2d 474, 479-80 (D.C.Cir.1986) (). 5 Accordingly, Cronin v. Federal Aviation Admin., 73 F.3d 1126, 1128 (D.C.Cir.1996). 6 And we hold that plaintiffs' challenge to the procedures for renewal and issuance of licenses contained in the law and regulations is not ripe for review. 7
Unlike their procedural due process claim, plaintiffs' equal...
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