Opinion ID: 2004064
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Taking Cause of Action

Text: Article I, § 7(a) of the State Constitution provides that [p]rivate property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. Invoking this provision, petitioners claim that DOCS' collection of a commission is a taking without just compensation. Petitioners do not assert that the State has created a property interest in low-cost telephone services for inmate call recipients or anyone else. Rather, the property at issue here is the money petitioners paid for the services provided by MCI. Petitioners' takings argument suffers from the same disability as their illegal taxation contention  a taking cannot occur in the absence of government compulsion. Typically, takings claims involve the appropriation or occupation of property without the owner's consent or, in the case of a regulatory taking, the enactment of legislation or an ordinance that is alleged to have destroyed the commercial value of a particular property ( see e.g. Matter of Smith v Town of Mendon, 4 NY3d 1 [2004]; Alliance of Am. Insurers v Chu, 77 NY2d 573 [1991]). Here, petitioners were not compelled to pay anything either to DOCS or MCI, nor was their money or other property confiscated by the State ( cf. Alliance of Am. Insurers, supra [where State guaranteed that insurers would receive income generated by insurer insolvency fund to which they were required to contribute, legislation raiding the fund amounted to an unconstitutional taking]). The acceptance of collect calls was voluntary action and, by taking the calls, petitioners agreed to pay the associated rate. They were in control of the length of the calls and, thus, the costs incurred. Just like any other consumer, petitioners purchased a service from MCI and were billed accordingly. Nor was there any appropriation of private property without just compensation because, in exchange for their payments, petitioners received telephone services. Notably, although they assert that DOCS should have arranged for more affordable rates, petitioners do not allege that the rate charged by MCI was exorbitant from a market perspective. As the PSC determination indicated, during the same time frame and with the approval of the PSC, another telephone services provider was charging comparable if not higher rates for station-to-station collect calls in New York outside the inmate calling context. Essentially, petitioners' takings claim boils down to the contention that DOCS had a constitutional obligation to ensure that the family members and legal services providers of inmates received telephone services at the lowest possible expense. While this might be a desirable policy decision, it was not an obligation mandated by the New York Constitution.