Case Name: Marie Benz, Appellant, v. New York State Thruway Authority, Respondent
Court: New York Court of Appeals
Jurisdiction: New York
Decision Date: 1961-04-27
Citations: 9 N.Y.2d 486
Docket Number: 
Parties: Marie Benz, Appellant, v. New York State Thruway Authority, Respondent.
Judges: 
Reporter: New York Reports
Volume: 9
Pages: 486–493

Head Matter:
Marie Benz, Appellant, v. New York State Thruway Authority, Respondent.
Argued March 1, 1961;
decided April 27, 1961.
Lauren D. Rachlin for appellant.
I. The State of New York has waived its immunity from actions in equity in section 8 of the Court of Claims Act. (Psaty v. Duryea, 306 N. Y. 413; Bernardine v. City of New York, 294 N. Y. 361; Smith v. State of New York, 227 N. Y. 405; Breen v. Mortgage Comm., 285 N. Y. 425; Glassman v. Glassman, 309 N. Y. 436; Strang v. State of New York, 206 Misc. 734; Pantess v. Saratoga Springs Auth., 255 App. Div. 426.) II. Even if the State has not waived its immunity from actions in equity, defendant is not immune from suit for rescission and/or reformation of a contract. (Easley v. New York State Thruway Auth., 1 N Y 2d 374; Matter of Plumbing Assn. v. New York State Thruway Auth., 5 N Y 2d 420; Bird v. New York State Thruway Auth., 8 A D 2d 495; Keifer & Keifer v. R. F. C., 306 U. S. 381; Sloan Shipyards v. United States Fleet Corp., 258 U. S. 549; Lacock v. City of Schenectady, 224 App. Div. 512; United States v. Michel, 282 U. S. 656; Beldon v. Mortgage Comm., 173 Misc. 731; Pantess v. Saratoga Springs Auth., 255 App. Div. 426; MacMullen v. City of Middletown, 187 N. Y. 37; Osborn v. United States Bank, 9 Wheat. [22 U. S.] 738; United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196.) III. Even if it were held that the doctrine of sovereign immunity applied to defendant, it still may not retain the benefits of a fraud committed by its agent in the performance of a ministerial act. (People v. Kerr, 27 N. Y. 188; Wright v. Shanahan, 61 Hun 264, 83 Hun 615, 149 N. Y. 495; People v. Canal Bd., 55 N. Y. 390; Weston v. City of Syracuse, 158 N. Y. 274; Sharp v. Mayor of City of N. Y., 40 Barb. 256; Locke v. Pembroke, 280 N. Y. 430; Schwartz v. Lubin, 6 A D 2d 108.) IV. The Thruway Authority may be likened to a municipal corporation acting in its corporate capacity. (Matter of Brown v. Board of Trustees of Town of Hamptonburg, 303 N. Y. 484; New York City Tunnel Auth. v. Consolidated Edison Co., 295 N. Y. 467; Moffett, Hodgkins & Co. v. Rochester, 178 U. S. 373; Abner M. Harper, Inc., v. City of Newburgh, 159 App. Div. 695; Martin v. Mayor of Brooklyn, 1 Hill 545; People v. Corporation of Albany, 11 Wend. 539; Van Dyke v. City of Utica, 203 App. Div. 26; Buck v. City of Lockport, 6 Lans. 251; Village of Elmira Hgts. v. Town of Horseheads, 234 App. Div. 270; Bloom v. Jewish Bd. of Guardians, 286 N. Y. 349; Bernardine v. City of New York, 294 N. Y. 361.) V. The denial of jurisdiction would constitute an unconstitutional deprivation of property without just compensation. (Locke v. Pembroke, 280 N. Y. 430; United States v. Lee, 106 U. S. 196; Chicago, B. & Q. R. R. Co. v. Chicago, 166 U. S. 226; Keifer & Keifer v. R. F. C., 306 U. S. 381.)
Louis J. Lefkowits, Attorney-General (Julius L. Sackman, Paxton Blair and James L. Magavern of counsel), for respondent.
I. The State has not waived its immunity from suits in equity. (Stone v. State of New York, 138 N. Y. 124; Matter of Hoople, 179 N. Y. 308; Sanders v. Saxton, 182 N. Y. 477; Saranac Land & Timber Co. v. Roberts, 195 N. Y. 303; Niagara Falls Power Co. v. White, 292 N. Y. 472; Psaty v. Duryea, 306 N. Y. 413; People v. Canal Bd., 55 N. Y. 390; Mathewson v. New York State Thruway Auth., 11 A D 2d 782; Glassman v. Glassman, 309 N. Y. 436; Easley v. New York State Thruway Auth., 1 N Y 2d 374.) II. Respondent, as an instrumentality of the State engaged in an operation which is governmental in nature, is clothed with the sovereign’s immunity except with respect to such causes as have been expressly statutorily allowed. No statutory waiver has been enacted which would permit maintenance of the instant cause of action. (Matter of Plumbing Assn. v. New York State Thruway Auth.. 5 N Y 2d 420; Bird v. New York State Thruway Auth., 8 A D 2d 495; New York City Tunnel Auth. v. Consolidated Edison Co., 295 N. Y. 467; Pantess v. Saratoga Springs Auth., 255 App. Div. 426; Strang v. State of New York, 206 Misc. 734; Bloom v. Jewish Bd. of Guardians, 286 N. Y. 349; Matter of Brown v. Board of Trustees of Town of Hamptonburg, 303 N. Y. 484; Holmes v. County of Erie, 266 App. Div. 220, 291 N. Y. 798; Lacock v. City of Schenectady, 224 App. Div. 512, 251 N. Y. 575; Wilcox v. City of Rochester, 190 N. Y. 137; Le Beau Piping Corp. v. City of New York, 170 Misc. 644; Glassman v. Glassman, 309 N. Y. 436; New Paltz, H. & P. T. Co. v. County of Ulster, 202 App. Div. 234; Voorhis v. Cornell Contr. Corp., 170 Misc. 908; Neddo v. State of New York, 194 Misc. 379, 275 App. Div. 492, 300 N. Y. 533.) III. The statutory power “ to sue and he sued ”, conferred upon the New York State Thruway Authority, does not detract from its immunity as above set forth. (Glassman v. Glassman, 309 N. Y. 436; Breen v. Mortgage Comm., 285 N. Y. 425; Lacock v. City of Schenectady, 224 App. Div. 512, 251 N. Y. 575; Beldon v. Mortgage Comm., 173 Misc. 731; Dietrich v. Palisades Interstate Park Comm., 114 Misc. 425; The Onteora, 298 F. 553; Jackson v. State of New York, 261 N. Y. 134.)

Opinion:
Chief Judge Desmond.
The courts below, bound as they were by Easley v. New York State Thruway Auth. (1 N Y 2d 374), correctly held that the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction of this equity suit (or of the equity suit of Mathewson v. New York State Thruway Auth., 9 N Y 2d 788, decided herewith). Easley held that the Thruway Authority " is an arm or agency of the State " (p. 376) and that " the Legislature could in creating the Thruway Authority have refused to waive immunity as to it and thus could have forbidden suits to be maintained against the Authority in any court or tribunal " (pp. 376-377). Easley's brief on his appeal to this court made (and we rejected) the identical arguments now made by appellant Benz. The Easley decision necessarily meant that there is no jurisdiction in any court of any suit against the Thruway Authority except as the Legislature has in terms created such jurisdiction.
There are just two statutory grants of jurisdiction to sue the Authority. One of them, section 361-b of the Public Authorities Law, discussed in Easley (supra), confers exclusive"jurisdiction upon the Court of Claims to hear and determine all claims against the Authority for alleged torts or breaches of contract. That enactment certainly does not authorize the bringing of these suits in the Supreme Court. The only other statutory grant of jurisdiction to bring actions against the Authority is in subdivision 5 of section 368 of the Public Authorities Law whereby the Legislature in order to permit one particular type of equity suit against the Thruway Authority enacted a special statute therefor.
In the Easley opinion (supra) we described at length the peculiarly close relationship between the Authority and the State itself and we concluded that for purposes of suit the Thruway Authority was part of the State Government and, accordingly, not suable without a direct waiver of immunity. The reasons for that holding were exactly the same as in Breen v. Mortgage Comm. (285 N. Y. 425) and the reasons why the present suit cannot be maintained against the Authority are the same reasons explained by us in Breen. Section 8 of the Court of Claims Act did not, so we directly held in the Breen opinion, authorize a suit by Breen in the Supreme Court and this situation was not affected by the statutory direction as to the Mortgage Commission that it may " sue and be sued". The same authorization as to the Thruway Authority (Public Authorities Law, § 354, subd. 1) has no broader meaning.
There may have been some doubt prior to 1954 (see dictum in Strang v. State of New York, 206 Misc. 734) as to jurisdiction of such suits as these but that doubt was removed by the legislative determination in 1954, before the Authority began to operate the Thruway, that there would be no jurisdiction of suits against the Authority except in the Court of Claims as to tort and contract claims and in the Supreme Court as to certain suits by bondholders (Public Authorities Law, § 354, 368). There is no provision anywhere for equity suits against the Thruway Authority. It would indeed be remarkable if the Legislature which " could have forbidden suits to be maintained against the Authority in any court or tribunal" produced a situation where suits at law could be prosecuted (per express enactment) in the Court of Claims only but (by legislative silence) equity suits would be allowed against the Thruway Authority in the Supreme Court. There is no sign that the lawmakers had any such strange intent.
This leaves plaintiff without any remedy by suit but " the immunity of a state agency is in no way affected by the lack of any other remedy ' ' (Glassman v. Glassman, 309 N. Y. 436, 441; see Psaty v. Duryea, 306 N. Y. 413, 420).
The judgment should be affirmed, without costs.