Opinion ID: 2057198
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The State as Sovereign

Text: The State argues first that the statute of limitations is no defense when it sues as sovereign to recover goods held in trust for the People of New York. The Appellate Division rejected this theory because section 1226 of the Civil Practice Act expressly set a limitations period for State actions to recover personal property, and because the limitations prescribed by the Civil Practice Act for actions other than for the recovery of real property applied alike to actions brought in the name of the people of the state, or for their benefit, and to actions by private persons ( see Civ Prac Act § 54; see also CPLR 201). [3] The State maintains, however, that these sections subject it to the statute of limitations only when it acts as a proprietor, not when it acts as a sovereign claiming irreplaceable personal property. The State acknowledges that we have never made this distinction, although the Appellate Division has done so once, relying on the common-law rule that no time runs against the King ( see State of New York v Vernooy, 109 AD2d 682, 683 [1985]). We decline to add a sovereign capacity exception to the statute of limitations when the State sues to recover personal property. The statutory language clearly subjects the State to the statute of limitations, with the limited exception (under the Civil Practice Act and earlier statutes) of actions for the recovery of real property ( see Civ Prac Act §§ 54, 1226; CPLR 201, 213 [5]). Where the Legislature has spoken so plainly, we are reluctant to find further, hidden exceptions. Beginning in the 17th century, English statutes limited the time in which the Crown might bring certain actions, including suits over rights in land ( see generally People v Clarke, 9 NY 349, 361 [1853]). New York's first statute of limitations, enacted in 1788, was nearly a literal transcript of the English law, and an 1801 revision left the substance of the 1788 statute intact ( see id. at 362; see also L 1801, ch 183). Construing the 1801 statute in 1820, Supreme Court concluded that the Legislature had revoked the State's immunity from statutes of limitations only where real property was concerned, so that the State's action against a lottery manager for misappropriation of funds was not time-barred ( see People v Gilbert, 18 Johns 227, 228-229). In Vernooy, when the State sued to assert its title to historic relics salvaged from a sunken warship in Lake Champlain, the Appellate Division relied on Gilbert to support its conclusion that no limitations period applied because the sovereign's common-law immunity remained intact ( see Vernooy, 109 AD2d at 683). That reliance was misplaced, because the statute of limitations has applied against the State in actions other than for real property ever since the Revised Statutes took effect in 1830 ( see Rev Stat of NY [part III, ch IV, tit II, § 28 (1st ed 1829)]). Thus, the Legislature enacted the precursor to Civil Practice Act § 54 and CPLR 201 in a deliberate departure from the common-law rule that, in general, no time runs against the King. Gilbert is merely a late specimen of that rule, inapplicable to the extent that legislation has shorn the government actor that invokes it of the protection which surrounds the sovereign ( see Matter of Gewertz v Berry, 258 NY 505, 509 [1932]). Indeed, the revisers' reports for the Revised Statutes of 1830 show that the precursor to Civil Practice Act § 54 and CPLR 201 was enacted in conscious repudiation of Gilbert. As the revisers stated, in Gilbert it was held that the state was not bound by the statute of limitations. It is supposed that no good reason exists for the discrimination (Revisers' Reports and Notes, 3 Rev Stat of NY, at 703 [2d ed 1836]). Thus, aside from the statutory language itself, which is clear enough, the legislative history plainly expresses an intent to repudiate this doctrine. The State reinforces its sovereign capacity argument by reference to several adverse possession cases ( see City of New York v Wilson & Co., 278 NY 86, 99-100 [1938]; Hinkley v State of New York, 234 NY 309, 315-316 [1922]; People v Baldwin, 197 App Div 285, 288, affd without op 233 NY 672 [1922]; Burbank v Fay, 65 NY 57, 65-67 [1875]; see also Weber v Board of Harbor Commrs., 18 Wall [85 US] 57, 70 [1873]). In each of these cases, however, the private claimant did not satisfy one or more of the elements of adverse possession, failing either to occupy the land openly, adversely and exclusively, or to do so for the necessary span of years. Nevertheless once, in Burbank, we characterized as most decisive the rule on which the State reliesnamely, that no transfer of title to land by adverse possession or prescription can be presumed where a grant would be unlawful (65 NY at 66). For the present discussion, we may assume that when public land of the kind at issue in Weber, Burbank and their progenycanals, forest preserves and submerged landis claimed by adverse possession, the claim fails, regardless of whether the limitations period has expired, and despite the facial intent of the statute of limitations to apply to the State. The rule, however, still leaves the State several steps short of what it advocates here: an exemption from the statute of limitations whenever it purports to sue as sovereign for personal property. Such a rule is objectionable for several reasons. First, it would carve a new exception out of the explicit statutory rule that limitations apply to the State and private persons alike. Second, a substantial body of law identifies the State's sovereignty specifically with its territorial jurisdiction and provides for the protection of sovereignty in this narrow sense ( see e.g. State Law § 10; see also Friends of Van Cortlandt Park v State of New York, 95 NY2d 623 [2001]). Third, as shown in the ensuing section, the State has remedies when its agents dissipate its personal propertyremedies, indeed, that by statute surpass those of a private owner. We therefore have no reason to add a further exception to the statute of limitations, particularly one that would be difficult to circumscribe. The State argues, however, that legislation creating the Bureau of War Records evinces a purpose to classify military relics as property held in trust for the public and therefore inalienable ( see Military Law § 24 [L 1950, ch 825, § 2, as amended]). The statute authorizes the militia Chief of Staff to assemble and keep military records, relics, colors, standards and battle flags, and it provides that such objects, once placed in the Bureau in Albany, shall be removed therefrom only under specific conditions ( see Military Law § 24 [1], [6] [b]). The State does not demonstrate, however, that the Legislature intended this section to abrogate such rights as militia units enjoyed, as of 1950, to dispose of property in their possession and not yet deposited in the Bureau. The extent of such rights remains disputed. The Fund maintains that former Military Law § 244 enabled the Regiment to dispose of any property it received from private donors. The Appellate Division held that this power did not extend to goods received by inter vivos gift (262 AD2d at 206). The State, noting that section 244 limited a militia unit's property rights to acts performed for its uses and purposes as a military organization, argues that both this phrase and Military Law § 24 put further limits on any power the Regiment had to transfer the memorabilia to the Fund. The courts below have not yet addressed the alleged tension among these statutes, in part because the State did not mention section 24 to any court before it briefed this appeal to us. We have no occasion now to dispose of the ultimate issues in this case, some of which may depend on factual findings as to the nature of the memorabilia. [4] The issue the State has presented solely concerns the statute of limitations whether Military Law § 24 restricts transactions in the memorabilia in the way that the State Constitution and other laws restrict transactions in forest preserves, canals and other public trust lands. We conclude that it does not. Read as a whole, Military Law § 24 authorizes the Chief of Staff to obtain military relics, store them, keep records about them and provide other custodial services. It does not purport to determine ownership rights, except insofar as it creates a procedure for the orderly removal of relics from the facility in Albany where they are kept, with the consent of the state historian ( see Military Law § 24 [6] [b]). As the Fund points out, this procedure, by making the disposition of state military relics a process vested in the discretion of state officials, treats such relics differently from the special classes of real property that may not be transferred without legislative enactments. [5] Some or all of the memorabilia here may well belong to the State, and Military Law § 24 may have some bearing on that ownership interest. But the procedure for disposing of military relics in section 24 shows that such relics are not inalienable in quite the same way that forest preserves and canals are forever inalienable ( see NY Const, art XIV, § 1; art XV, § 1). Military Law § 24 does not justify finding an implied exception to the general rule under the Civil Practice Act and CPLR that the State is subject to statutes of limitations. The State asserts, finally, that the constitutional prohibition on gifts of public funds bans the 1952 transaction and that the statute of limitations, to pass constitutional muster, should therefore be construed not to bar the instant action ( see NY Const, art VII, § 8 [1]). For this novel proposition, the State cites People v Journal Co. (213 NY 1, 8-9 [1914]), which actually held that the 10-year statute of limitations in Code of Civil Procedure § 1973the precursor of Civil Practice Act § 1226 applied to an action by the State to recover improperly disbursed funds. We do not find constitutional prohibitions lightly and will not do so here. The State remains free to argue that the constitutional ban on gifts of public funds constrained the Regiment's power to dispose of the memorabilia in 1952. It simply has not shown that this or any other authority renders it immune from the statute of limitations in actions to recover personal property.