Court Opinion

ID: 5484652
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-01-10 02:06:52.718471+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:33:40.007769
License: Public Domain

R.S. Smith, J.
(concurring). I join the Court’s opinion, but also write separately to express my views on our decision in Matter of Board of Educ. of Enlarged Ogdensburg City School Dist. (Wager Constr. Corp.) (37 NY2d 283 [1975]).
In Wager, we interpreted Education Law § 3813 (1), which, like Public Authorities Law § 1744 (2), provides that a notice of *194claim must be presented “within three months after the accrual of such claim.” We held in Wager that “accrual” of a “claim” occurs when a contractor’s damages are ascertainable, even if no “cause of action” has yet accrued because no one has disputed the amount of the contractor’s bill. Wager was based on questionable logic, and has led to unfortunate results.
In support of its distinction between accrual of a claim and accrual of a cause of action, Wager cited three Appellate Division decisions: Shalman v Board of Educ. of Cent. School Dist. No. 1 (31 AD2d 338 [3d Dept 1969]), Waterman v State of New York (19 AD2d 264 [4th Dept 1963], affd without op 14 NY2d 793 [1964], 17 NY2d 613 [1966]), and Terrace Hotel Co. v State of New York (19 AD2d 434 [3d Dept 1963]). In each of these cases, the claim was held to have accrued after the cause of action accrued, and the court relied on the distinction between a claim and a cause of action to hold that the contractor’s claim was timely. The gist of the holdings in the three Appellate Division cases is that, when a dispute between the parties has arisen and a cause of action has therefore accrued, the contractor should still not have to submit its claim until it can know what its damages are.
But Wager relied on the distinction between claim and cause of action to reject a contractor’s claim—holding that a contractor must submit a notice of claim within 90 days of determining the amount it is owed, even when the obligation to pay that amount has never been disputed. We did not explain in Wager, and so far as I know no one has ever explained, why this result makes sense. It might have been logical to hold that a claim accrues upon the later of the two events—accrual of a cause of action and ascertainment of damages—but we did not discuss that possibility in Wager.
The result of the Wager holding is that contractors sometimes find themselves in the position of plaintiff in this case, whose claim was time-barred before there was any reason to expect litigation. This anomaly has troubled the courts (see e.g., Koren-DiResta Constr. Co. v New York City School Constr. Auth., 293 AD2d 189 [1st Dept 2002]); indeed, both Supreme Court and the Appellate Division in this case expressed distaste for the result they were forced to reach. The Legislature was troubled too, and in 1992 it amended Education Law § 3813 (1) to provide that “accrual” of a claim “shall be deemed to have occurred as of the date payment for the amount claimed was denied” (L 1992, ch 387). The sponsors’ mémorandum in support of this *195amendment was highly critical of cases applying the rule of Wager: “The courts’ interpretation . . . makes no sense” (Mem in Support, Bill Jacket, L 1992, ch 387). But while Wager, insofar as it applies to Education Law cases, was thus legislatively overruled, the Legislature made no corresponding amendment to Public Authorities Law § 1744 (2), the statute involved in this case.
We hold today that Wager remains the law. It has stood for 30 years, and the Legislature, while overruling it in the Education Law context, has left the corresponding provision of the Public Authorities Law unaltered. There is no obvious reason, however, why the Legislature should not amend the latter statute in the same way it amended the former, and thus put an end to the Wager rule.
Chief Judge Kaye and Judges G.B. Smith, Ciparick, Rosenblatt, Read and R.S. Smith concur with Judge Graffeo; Judge R.S. Smith concurs in a separate concurring opinion.
Order affirmed, with costs.