Uniformed Firefighters Ass'n of Greater New York v. City of New York

• Decision Date: 26 March 1992
• Citation: 590 N.E.2d 719,79 N.Y.2d 236,581 N.Y.S.2d 734
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: , 590 N.E.2d 719 UNIFORMED FIREFIGHTERS ASSOCIATION OF GREATER NEW YORK, Appellant, v. CITY OF NEW YORK et al., Respondents.

Page 734

581 N.Y.S.2d 734

79 N.Y.2d 236, 590 N.E.2d 719

UNIFORMED FIREFIGHTERS ASSOCIATION OF GREATER NEW YORK, Appellant, v. CITY OF NEW YORK et al., Respondents.

Court of Appeals of New York.

March 26, 1992.

[79 N.Y.2d 237] John F. Mills, Carol L. O'Rourke and James A. Brown, Garden City, for appellant.

O. Peter Sherwood, Corp. Counsel (John Hogrogian, Elizabeth S. Natrella, Marilyn Richter and Alan M. Schlesinger, of counsel), New York City, for respondents.

OPINION OF THE COURT

TITONE, Judge.

At issue in this appeal is the power of the Supreme Court to grant injunctive relief as a means of preserving the status quo during the pendency of an improper labor practice proceeding before the New York City Board of Collective Bargaining. The courts below concluded that the Supreme Court has no such power, and we agree. Accordingly, plaintiff's complaint, which sought such relief, was properly dismissed.

The parties' dispute began on November 26, 1990 with defendants' issuance of an intradepartmental order changing the classification of a position within the New York City Fire Department from "full duty" to "light duty" effective January 1, 1991. Contending that the reclassification would have a negative practical impact on the safety of its members, plaintiff, the uniformed firefighters' collective bargaining agent, filed petitions for relief with the New York City Board of Collective Bargaining (the Board), the agency charged with overseeing labor relations between the City and its employees (Administrative Code of City of New York § 12-309). Specifically, plaintiff alleged that the challenged order represented an improper labor practice and that it ought to be rescinded so that the matter could be resolved through the collective bargaining process (see, id., §§ 12-306, 12-307).

Shortly after filing its petitions, plaintiff commenced the present action in Supreme Court seeking an order enjoining defendants from implementing their new policy "pending a determination by [the Board] of the merits of [plaintiff's] improper practice * * * and scope of bargaining petition[s]." Plaintiff alleged that such relief was necessary because "[t]he [Board's] processing of the * * * petitions can take many months," implementation of the new policy was imminent and if injunctive relief were not granted, the safety of New York City's firefighters would be placed in jeopardy, rendering any subsequent order of the Board "ineffectual." ¹

On the parties' cross motions, the trial court dismissed the complaint, holding that it had no subject matter jurisdiction to entertain plaintiff's request for relief. In support of that conclusion, the court relied on two recent Appellate Division decisions (Matter of Caruso v. Ward, 146 A.D.2d 486, 536 N.Y.S.2d 447; Buffalo Police Benevolent Assn. v. City of Buffalo, 79 A.D.2d 186, 438 N.Y.S.2d 43) and distinguished a third (Matter of Schenectady Police Benevolent Assn. v. City of Schenectady, 158 A.D.2d 849, 551 N.Y.S.2d 643). The Appellate Division affirmed the trial court's ruling on the ground that there was no underlying action to support the issuance of a preliminary injunction. 173 A.D.2d 206, 569 N.Y.S.2d 634. This Court subsequently granted defendants leave to take a further appeal.

Regardless of how its complaint is framed, the ultimate relief plaintiff seeks in this action is relief in the nature of a preliminary injunction. The purpose of plaintiff's Supreme Court action is not to obtain a final adjudication on the merits of its dispute with defendants, but rather to preserve the status quo until that dispute can be resolved through the Board's adjudicative process. Indeed, plaintiff's aim could not be otherwise, since that administrative agency has primary jurisdiction over this dispute about whether plaintiff's and its members' rights under Administrative Code §§ 12-306 and 12-307 have been violated (see, Administrative Code § 12-308). Thus, the threshold question for us to resolve is whether the Supreme Court has the authority to grant such relief.

The most obvious source of authority for granting preliminary injunctive relief is CPLR 6301, the basic statutory vehicle for preserving the status quo during the pendency of civil litigation. That statute, however, provides no assistance to plaintiff in this case, because it authorizes the issuance of a preliminary injunction only within an "action," i.e., a judicial suit brought to obtain an adjudication of the merits of, and a substantive remedy for, a particular dispute. Since there is no such judicial action pending between the parties here, a preliminary injunction pursuant to CPLR 6301 is unavailable (see, Buffalo Police Benevolent Assn. v. City of Buffalo, supra, 79 A.D.2d at 190, 438 N.Y.S.2d 43).

It remains to be determined whether there is anything in the Supreme Court's inherent powers that could serve as a source of authority for granting a preliminary injunction in connection with a pending administrative proceeding. As a general rule, the courts of this State have "no inherent absolute power to grant interlocutory injunctions" and may not do so in the absence of an authorizing statute (see, Bachman v. Harrington, 184 N.Y. 458, 462, 77 N.E. 657 [and cases cited therein]; Matter of Board of Educ. v. Lewis, 67 Misc.2d 770, 325 N.Y.S.2d 587; 7A Weinstein-Korn-Miller, N.Y.Civ.Prac. p 6301.05, at 63-13, 63-14). On a few rare occasions, courts have carved out exceptions to this general rule where necessary to protect the court's jurisdiction or to prevent an action that would frustrate its final determination (Matter of Ohrbach v. Kirkeby, 3 A.D.2d 269, 161 N.Y.S.2d 371 [Breitel, J.]; accord, Ocorr v. Lynn, 105 Misc. 489, 173 N.Y.S. 518, affd 190 A.D. 927, 179 N.Y.S. 939; see also, Woerishoffer v. North Riv. Constr. Co., 99 N.Y. 398, 2 N.E. 47). However, with one anomaly which will be discussed below, none have held that preliminary injunctive relief is available when the underlying dispute itself has not been, and will not be, placed before the court for final resolution.

The anomalous case, on which plaintiff relies, also arose in the context of a public sector labor dispute that was pending before an administrative agency (PERB) (Matter of Schenectady Police Benevolent Assn. v. City of Schenectady, 158 A.D.2d 849, 551 N.Y.S.2d 643, supra ). In Schenectady, the court provisionally enjoined an employer from compelling an employee to take a lie detector test until PERB could resolve the merits of the underlying dispute over the lie detector test because the alternative--permitting the test to go forward--would have rendered PERB's ultimate determination moot.

The circumstances in this case are significantly different, in that the activity plaintiff here seeks to restrain is a continuing one and, consequently, there is no risk of a mootness problem even if provisional relief is not afforded. However, even if that distinction did not exist, plaintiff could not prevail, since, for the reasons that follow, we decline to adopt the premise on which the Schenectady decision was based, i.e., that courts have "inherent authority" to issue preliminary injunctions either to protect the jurisdiction of an administrative agency adjudicating a dispute or to prevent actions which could render the agency's determination moot. ²

First, because preliminary injunctions prevent the litigants from taking actions that they are otherwise legally entitled to take in advance of an adjudication on the merits, they should be issued cautiously and in accordance with appropriate procedural safeguards (see, e.g., Town of Porter v. Chem-Trol Pollution Servs., 60 A.D.2d 987, 401 N.Y.S.2d 646; Camardo v Board of Educ., 50 A.D.2d 1073, 376 N.Y.S.2d 344; see also, McLaughlin, Practice Commentaries, McKinney's Cons. Laws of N.Y., Book 7B, CPLR C6301:1, at 209 [preliminary injunctions are "drastic" remedies]. For cases involving preliminary injunctions to be issued pursuant to CPLR 6301, the Legislature has provided for a number of specific safeguards (CPLR 6312 [b] [requiring the posting of an undertaking]; 6315 [establishing a procedure for assessment of "damages sustained * * * by reason of the preliminary injunction"]. Similarly, the Legislature has placed elaborate restrictions on the use of preliminary injunctions in private sector labor disputes (Labor Law § 807). Since such specific provisions would not apply to preliminary injunctions issued pursuant to the court's "inherent authority," the courts would have to undertake to fashion a new set of procedural rules and safeguards of their own to govern applications such as plaintiff's. This would be an undesirable outcome, since, as we have noted in a different context, "establishing appropriate standards and procedures" is a task best left to statutes and rules rather than to ad hoc judicial decision-making (Matter of A.G. Ship Maintenance Corp. v. Lezak, 69 N.Y.2d 1, 6, 511 N.Y.S.2d 216, 503 N.E.2d 681).

Second, and even more importantly, permitting courts to grant preliminary injunctive relief in public sector labor disputes pending before the Board or PERB would have the undesirable effect of embroiling the courts in the merits of such disputes, a matter best left to the "impartial body with expertise in th[at] area" (see, Matter of Levitt v. Board of Collective Bargaining, 79 N.Y.2d 120, 128, 580 N.Y.S.2d 917, 589 N.E.2d 1; Matter of Board of Educ. v. New York State...