Opinion ID: 1987686
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The propriety of the declaratory judgment action

Text: We first address an important procedural issue. Relying on our decision in Kelly's Rental v City of New York (44 NY2d 700 [1978]), the DAs assert that this declaratory judgment action which was commenced the day after the search warrants were executedshould have been dismissed on the ground that it would interfere with a pending criminal prosecution. Both lower courts rejected this argument as do we. The general rule is that, once a criminal action has been initiated, a criminal defendant may not bring a declaratory judgment action to raise a statutory interpretation or other issue that can be adjudicated in the criminal prosecution ( see generally Reed v Littleton, 275 NY 150 [1937]; New York Foreign Trade Zone Operators, Inc. v State Liq. Auth., 285 NY 272 [1941]; see e.g. Kelly's Rental, supra ). [8] The prohibition on declaratory judgment actions in this circumstance is comparable to the rule generally precluding a writ of prohibition by a criminal defendantan adequate opportunity to raise legal arguments and receive appropriate relief will be available to the defendant in the criminal prosecution, particularly given a defendant's right to appeal adverse rulings in the event of a conviction. [9] Before a criminal action is commenced, however, a declaratory judgment action may be entertained in the discretion of the court if the constitutionality or legality of a statute or regulation is in question and no question of fact is involved ( Ulster Home Care v Vacco, 255 AD2d 73, 77 [3d Dept 1999]; see New York Foreign Trade Zone Operators, supra ). The DAs point out that, in Kelly's Rental , we stated that [a] party against whom a criminal proceeding is pending may not seek declaratory relief (44 NY2d at 702) and therefore referred to the commencement of a criminal proceeding as the point when a defendant is foreclosed from bringing such an action, rather than the commencement of a criminal action. As they correctly note, under the Criminal Procedure Law, the filing of a search warrant application commences a criminal proceeding ( see CPL 1.20 [18]; see Matter of B. T. Prods. v Barr, 54 AD2d 315, 319-320 [1976], affd 44 NY2d 226 [1978]) while a criminal action is not initiated until an accusatory instrument is filed against a defendant ( see CPL 1.20 [16]). Our holding in Kelly's Rental falls neatly within the general rule. In that case, a private car rental company initiated an action seeking a declaration that a New York City Administrative Code provision imposing a licensing requirement did not apply to private car rental companies. Noting that the company and its employees had received numerous summonses to appear in Criminal Court for alleged violations of the provision, we concluded that [a] party against whom a criminal proceeding is pending may not seek declaratory relief ( Kelly's Rental, 44 NY2d at 702). It was evident in that case that criminal prosecutions had been commenced against individual defendants, including the private car rental company, which barred the company's pursuit of declaratory relief in a collateral, civil action. We did not cite the Criminal Procedure Law in Kelly's Rental , nor did we mean to invoke the definition embodied therein when we used the phrase criminal proceeding informally instead of the more technically accurate criminal action to describe the procedural posture of the underlying prosecution. Our holding in Kelly's Rental did not expand the rule precluding the use of declaratory judgment actions to encompass situations like this one where a search warrant application was executed but no party was named as the defendant and no accusatory instrument had been filed against any person or company at the time civil relief was sought. A search warrant often targets a place without identifying a defendant. As such, it is not accurate to say that, in every case where a search warrant application has been filed, a criminal prosecution has been commenced, particularly since a warrant may be requested long before a decision is made to file criminal charges. A party is not categorically precluded from initiating a declaratory judgment action based on nothing more than the execution of a search warrant when the issue to be raised involves a pure question of lawsuch as a query concerning the scope and interpretation of a statute or a challenge to its constitutional validity and the facts relevant to that issue are undisputed, as they are here. Because no criminal action had been initiated against any identified party at the time this declaratory judgment action was commenced, the decision whether the action could be entertained fell soundly within the realm of discretion possessed by the lower courts and we discern no abuse of that discretion in the denial of the motion to dismiss.