Source: http://openjurist.org/print/485613
Timestamp: 2015-11-30 01:12:15
Document Index: 569151018

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 50', '§ 50', '§ 51', '§ 50', '§ 50', '§ 1983']

136 F3d 123 New York Magazine Division of Primedia Magazines Inc v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority
Home > 136 F3d 123 New York Magazine Division of Primedia Magazines Inc v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority
136 F3d 123 New York Magazine Division of Primedia Magazines Inc v. Metropolitan Transportation Authority 136 F.3d 123
26 Media L. Rep. 1301
NEW YORK MAGAZINE, A DIVISION OF PRIMEDIA MAGAZINES, INC.,Plaintiff-Appellee,v.The METROPOLITAN TRANSPORTATION AUTHORITY and The City ofNew York, Defendants-Appellants.
No. 1645, Dockets 97-9511, 97-9519.
Argued Dec. 15, 1997.Decided Jan. 22, 1998.
The parties do not dispute the material facts. New York Magazine, a weekly publication distributed throughout New York City and elsewhere, regularly and frequently carries news reports and political commentary regarding the City of New York, its politicians, and other public figures, as well as other features and stories of general interest. MTA is a public benefit corporation created in 1965 by New York state law that owns and operates the majority of the public buses in New York providing daily local transportation. MTA raises revenue for its operation, in part, by leasing advertising space on the buses; it solicits advertisers and enters into contractual agreements for lease of its advertising space through an agent, Transportation Displays Incorporated ["TDI"]. In September of 1997, TDI, on behalf of MTA, and New York Magazine entered into a contract [the "Agreement"]. MTA agreed to display the Advertisement, as part of a series of three, on the sides of seventy-five of its buses, and New York Magazine agreed to pay $85,000 for the series. The Advertisement was to run from just before Thanksgiving to December 31, 1997, and possibly for some time during January, 1998. The Agreement provided that "[a]ll advertising copy is subject to approval of TDI and the Transportation Facility concerned as to character [and] text...." New York Magazine agreed to "indemnify and save harmless TDI and [MTA] against any liability to which [they] may be subjected by reason of the advertising required under this contract."
New York Magazine provided TDI seventy-five copies of the Advertisement before November 15, 1997, in accordance with the Agreement. Neither TDI nor MTA objected to the Advertisement at that time, and MTA began posting the Advertisement around November 24, 1997, according to schedule. At some point in the following week, Mayor Giuliani's office called the MTA and asked that the Advertisement be removed, objecting to the use of the Mayor's name to promote a commercial product, claiming this violated § 50 of the New York Civil Rights Law. Section 50 provides, "A person, firm or corporation that uses for advertising purposes, or for the purposes of trade, the name, portrait or picture of any living person without having first obtained the written consent of such person, ... is guilty of a misdemeanor." N.Y.Civ.Rights Law § 50 (McKinney 1997). Section 51 provides that "[a]ny person whose name, portrait or picture is used within this state for advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade without ... written consent ... may maintain an equitable action in the supreme court of this state against the [party] so using his name, portrait or picture ... and may also sue and recover damages for any injuries sustained by reason of such use...." Id. § 51 (footnote omitted). The statute provides that the jury may award exemplary damages in its discretion if the defendant violated § 50 knowingly. Id.
MTA adopted standards governing its acceptance of advertising by a board resolution dated March 24, 1994, and amended those standards effective September 30, 1997 [the "Standards"].1 The Standards impose no restriction on political speech. The Standards prohibit, inter alia, the display of any advertisement that "violates New York Civil Rights Law § 50." Standards § (a)(vii) (1994). The Standards also set forth procedures by which advertisements may be reviewed for compliance, requiring the MTA contractor (here, TDI) to review every advertisement to determine whether it falls within a prohibited category. If the contractor believes a submitted advertisement violates the Standards, the contractor is required to provide the advertiser with a copy of the Standards and notify the advertiser that the advertisement has been determined to violate the Standards, the reasons for that determination, and that the advertiser has a right to request a prompt review. Id. § (c)(i) (amended 1997). MTA concedes that TDI failed to follow these procedures with respect to the Advertisement.
We review the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction for abuse of discretion, although we review its determinations of law de novo. Malkentzos v. DeBuono, 102 F.3d 50, 54 (2d Cir.1996); County of Seneca v. Cheney, 12 F.3d 8, 11 (2d Cir.1994). If the District Court has based its decision on an error of law, it has ipso facto abused its discretion. Cheney, 12 F.3d at 11; see Henry J. Friendly, Indiscretion About Discretion, 31 Emory L.J. 747, 776-78 (1982).
B. Standing against the City
The district court denied New York Magazine's motion for preliminary injunction with respect to its claim against the City for tortious interference with contract, and New York Magazine claims no error with respect to that denial. The district court issued its injunction for New York Magazine's claim under § 1983 against both defendants: "Defendants are enjoined and restrained from refusing to display, or restricting or limiting the display of Primedia's advertisements on [MTA] buses pursuant to its December, 1997 contract with TDI." New York Magazine v. Metropolitan Transit Auth., 987 F.Supp. 254, 270 (S.D.N.Y.1997) (order granting preliminary injunction). However, New York Magazine lacks standing to assert a claim against the City for injunctive relief. Article III of the U.S. Constitution requires that a "case" or "controversy" be present in order to confer jurisdiction on federal courts for a particular claim; standing to sue is an essential part of that requirement. See Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 498, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 2204, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975). Even assuming that the City, acting through the office of the Mayor, violated New York Magazine's rights under the First Amendment by contacting MTA and asking that the Advertisement be removed, New York Magazine does not have standing to request injunctive relief against the City. In City of Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U.S. 95, 103 S.Ct. 1660, 75 L.Ed.2d 675 (1983), the Supreme Court held that a plaintiff who may have been illegally choked by police, who would have had standing to state a claim for damages, did not have standing to seek injunctive relief against the police. Id. at 110, 103 S.Ct. at 1669-70; see also Levin v. Harleston, 966 F.2d 85, 90 (2d Cir.1992). In Lyons, the fact "[t]hat Lyons may have been illegally choked by the police ..., while presumably affording Lyons standing to claim damages against the individual officers and perhaps against the City, does nothing to establish a real and immediate threat that he would again be stopped ... by an officer or officers who would illegally choke him...." Lyons, 461 U.S. at 105, 103 S.Ct. at 1667. The Mayor's office has informed MTA of its feelings about the Advertisement; New York Magazine has not alleged any continuing action by the City, nor any real and immediate threat that the Mayor's office will do anything further to interfere with MTA's display of the Advertisement.
MTA claims it took its action pursuant to the Standards. Where a party seeks a preliminary injunction to stay "government action taken in the public interest pursuant to a statutory or regulatory scheme," that party must show a likelihood of success on the merits and irreparable harm. Jolly v. Coughlin, 76 F.3d 468, 473 (2d Cir.1996) (quoting Able v. United States, 44 F.3d 128, 131 (2d Cir.1995)). The district court required New York Magazine to show not only a likelihood, but a "clear" or "substantial" likelihood, of success on the merits, reasoning that the order requested by New York Magazine is a mandatory injunction, one that seeks to alter, rather than maintain, the status quo. New York Magazine, 987 F.Supp. at 259 (citing Jolly, 76 F.3d at 473). We do not need to decide whether the district court correctly held New York Magazine to the standard appropriate for mandatory, as opposed to prohibitive, injunctions, because New York Magazine meets the more stringent requirement. As for irreparable harm, the district court noted that if New York Magazine were correct as a matter of law that MTA's action unlawfully abridged its freedom of speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment, New York Magazine established irreparable harm. The " 'loss of First Amendment freedoms,