Opinion ID: 684083
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: NYPIRG's Liability for Attorney's Fees

Text: 33 Having concluded that appellants have prevailed against NYPIRG on the forced-membership issue, it is necessary to decide whether NYPIRG is liable for attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988. A private party, such as NYPIRG, can be liable for attorney's fees under section 1988 only if it is subject to jurisdiction under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. Annunziato v. The Gan, Inc. 744 F.2d 244, 250 (2d Cir.1984). Conduct by a private entity, such as NYPIRG, is considered state action when [t]he State has so far insinuated itself into a position of interdependence with [the private party] that it must be recognized as a joint participant in the challenged activity, Burton v. Wilmington Parking Auth., 365 U.S. 715, 725, 81 S.Ct. 856, 862, 6 L.Ed.2d 45 (1961), or when there is a sufficiently close nexus between the State and the challenged action that the private party's action may be fairly treated as that of the State itself, Jackson v. Metropolitan Edison Co., 419 U.S. 345, 351, 95 S.Ct. 449, 453, 42 L.Ed.2d 477 (1974); accord Hadges v. Yonkers Racing Corp., 918 F.2d 1079, 1081 (2d Cir.1990), cert. denied, 499 U.S. 960, 111 S.Ct. 1583, 113 L.Ed.2d 648 (1991); Annunziato, 744 F.2d at 250-52 (private party must have been a joint actor with state or involved in a mutual understanding or concerted action with state actors). 34 Appellants contend that NYPIRG's entitlement to an allocation from the mandatory student activity fee, and thus its ability to claim that all students were NYPIRG members because they were all fee paying students, resulted from its exercise of a privilege having its source in state authority. We agree. Here, the undisputed facts demonstrate that the state institution, SUNY Albany, and the private defendant, NYPIRG, were joint participants in the unlawful conduct. NYPIRG's by-laws provided that any student who pays the student activity fees is a 'member' of the organization. 957 F.2d at 995. This overt[ ] and inaccurate[ ] claim[ ] to represent the interests of the SUNY Albany student body, id. at 1003, was made possible by state regulations, enforced by SUNY Albany, that make payment of the entire fee a condition of registration, attendance, matriculation and graduation at SUNY Albany. See N.Y.Educ.Law Sec. 355; 8 N.Y.C.R.R. Sec. 302.14. Pursuant to these regulations, the President of SUNY Albany must approve the allocation and use of the student activity fees. Furthermore, the SUNY Albany administration had been provided with NYPIRG's by-laws, so it cannot claim to have been unaware of NYPIRG's policy of forced association. Taking these factors into consideration, it is clear that the co-defendants were joint participants in the unlawful conduct.