Opinion ID: 1707932
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: State Action Decisions under State Constitutions in Other Jurisdictions

Text: The same New York statutory scheme upheld in Flagg Brothers was invalidated shortly thereafter under the New York Constitution. In Svendsen v. Smith's Moving & Trucking Co., 76 A.D.2d 504, 431 N.Y.S.2d 94 (1980), the court, noting that Flagg Brothers was not dispositive of a state constitutional challenge, followed the earlier decision of New York's highest court in Sharrock v. Dell Buick-Cadillac, Inc., 45 N.Y.2d 152, 408 N.Y.S.2d 39, 379 N.E.2d 1169 (1978) on the state action issue in debtor-creditor relationships. In Sharrock, which involved a post- Flagg Brothers challenge under the state constitution to a garagemen's lien similar to the warehousemen's lien in Flagg Brothers, the court fashioned a flexible concept for analyzing state action. Although noting that the New York Constitution contains no express state action requirement, the court acknowledged the necessity of state involvement for a successful constitutional challenge. Then the court, essentially using the same two state action theories rejected in Flagg Brothers, adopted a more flexible standard for determining whether there was sufficient state involvement to implicate due process guarantees. Bartlett, supra. First, the court determined that the state not only authorized the garageman's right to possession of the property, a right afforded by the common law, but also authorized enforcement of the lien by ex parte sale, thereby expanding the common law rights and entwin[ing] itself into the debtor-creditor relationship arising out of otherwise regular consumer transactions. 408 N.Y.S.2d 39, 379 N.E.2d at 1175. Additionally, the court determined that the state's delegation of the power to resolve unilaterally an otherwise judicially cognizable controversy vested the garageman with a traditional sovereign function. Id. California followed New York in applying an independent state constitutional analysis for determining the existence of state action. Citing Sharrock, the court in Martin v. Heady, 103 Cal.App.3d 580, 163 Cal.Rptr. 117 (1980), invalidated an aircraft lien law that granted an aircraft keeper a lien for the repair and storage charges against the aircraft serviced. The court determined there was state action because the private lien sales statute constituted a delegation by the state of its traditional sovereign power of nonconsensual enforcement of possessory liens by private sale. Noting that a possessory lien-holder had no power under the common law to enforce the lien, [7] the court rejected the argument that the statute was simply a codification of the common law and determined that the statute authorized state, rather than private, action.