Court Opinion

ID: 9705057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 00:55:35.668836+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:07.641327
License: Public Domain

Jones, J. (dissenting).
The question before this Court is whether Correction Law § 24 violates the Supremacy Clause insofar as it bars litigants from bringing 42 USC § 1983 claims for money damages in state court against DOCS employees for actions committed within the scope of their employment. As interpreted by the majority, section 24 frustrates the purpose of, and is inconsistent with, section 1983. Specifically, section 24 (1) burdens the litigation of section 1983 actions by preventing state courts from adjudicating claims for money damages—even where such courts have jurisdiction over the parties and the type of claim brought—while, at the same time, allowing the court to adjudicate state law actions involving the same conduct by DOCS employees; and (2) immunizes a select group of state employees from section 1983 damages claims where other state employees are not similarly immunized. The majority and the State argue, however, that state courts can decline to exercise their concurrent jurisdiction over section 1983 money damages claims against DOCS employees because Correction Law § 24 affords New York State a “valid excuse” (i.e., a neutral rule of judicial administration limiting subject matter jurisdiction) for doing so. Contrary to the majority’s conclusion, section 24 cannot withstand a challenge under the Supremacy Clause. Accordingly, I dissent and would reverse the orders of the Appellate Division, reinstate plaintiffs claims and remand both actions to Supreme Court for further proceedings.
I.
Correction Law § 24 (entitled “Civil actions against [DOCS] personnel”) states:
“1. No civil action shall be brought in any court of the state, except by the attorney general on behalf of the state, against any officer or employee of the department, in his personal capacity, for damages arising out of any act done or the failure to perform any act within the scope of the employment and in the discharge of the duties by such officer or employee.
“2. Any [such] claim for damages arising out of any act done or the failure to perform any act within the scope of the employment and in the discharge of *492the duties of any officer or employee of the department shall be brought and maintained in the court of claims as a claim against the state” (emphasis added).
We have stated that the purpose of section 24 is to ensure that DOCS employees, when acting within the scope of employment, freely perform their dangerous duties of maintaining safety and security within correctional facilities without fear of being subjected to voluminous, vexatious and, in many cases, merit-less suits brought by prisoners and being held personally liable should a prisoner prevail (see Arteaga v State of New York, 72 NY2d 212, 219 [1988]).
The majority opinion provides a detailed description of plaintiffs present claims, and several previous ones (see majority op at 484-485), apparently to suggest that the claims are frivolous, which they may well be. I recognize that the problem of baseless lawsuits by prisoners against corrections officers is a serious one; Congress, however, enacted section 1983 to deal with an even more serious problem—i.e., violations of citizens’ rights by those acting under the color of state law.
Section 1983 is the current version of section 1 of the Civil Rights Act of 1871, one of the post-Civil War Reconstruction-Era civil rights statutes Congress enacted.1 Section 1983 states:
*493“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territoiy or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress” (emphasis added).
Thus, section 1983 permits an individual deprived of his or her federal civil rights by person(s) acting under color of state law (i.e., government officials) to bring a civil suit against the state actor(s), in their personal capacity, for compensatory relief. Moreover, the Supreme Court stated that section 1983 was meant to create
“a species of liability in favor of persons deprived of their federal civil rights by those wielding state authority. . . . ‘[T]he central objective of the Reconstruction-Era civil rights statutes ... is to ensure that individuals whose federal constitutional or statutory rights are abridged may recover damages or secure injunctive relief.’ Thus, [section] 1983 provides ‘a uniquely federal remedy against incursions . . . upon rights secured by the Constitution and laws of the Nation,’ and is to be accorded ‘a sweep as broad as its language. ’
“Any assessment of the applicability of a state law to federal civil rights litigation, therefore, must be made in light of the purpose and nature of the federal right. This is so whether the question of *494state-law applicability arises in [section] 1983 litigation brought in state courts, which possess concurrent jurisdiction over such actions, or in federal-court litigation” (Felder v Casey, 487 US 131, 139 [1988] [emphasis added and citations omitted]).
Bottom line, Congress decided that the threat of abuse of citizens by those acting under color of state law was real enough to justify creating the section 1983 cause of action—even though many section 1983 cases lack merit. Accordingly, the State of New York is not free to decide that DOCS employees must be immune from such suits. In any event, the issue here is not whether plaintiff has a right to bring these claims—he clearly does—but whether state courts, as well as federal courts, must bear the burden of adjudicating them. In my view, state courts cannot selectively escape this responsibility. However, over the years, New York State courts have (see Steven H. Steinglass, an Introduction to State Court Section 1983 Litigation, in Sword and Shield, A Practical Approach to Section 1983 Litigation, at 153 [ABA 3d ed 2006] [stating that “(t)he most flagrant example of a state court system selectively excluding (section) 1983 cases is the refusal of the New York courts to entertain (section) 1983 actions against state correctional officials”]).
Although the State of New York generally has the freedom to fix the rules of subject matter jurisdiction its courts must follow, it does not have the authority to enact a statute that violates or is inconsistent with federal law—for example, a statute immunizing “an official from liability for injuries compensable under federal law” (Howlett v Rose, 496 US 356, 361 [1990], citing Martinez v California, 444 US 277 [1980])—and simply refer to the statute as a neutral rule of subject matter jurisdiction that serves as a valid excuse for Supremacy Clause purposes. In enacting Correction Law § 24, however, the State Legislature has put forth a statute immunizing official conduct otherwise actionable under federal law. Section 24 is, therefore, inconsistent with section 1983 and violative of the Supremacy Clause.
II.
Under the Supremacy Clause (US Const art VI [2]), federal law is “the supreme Law of the Land.” The Supreme Court explained:
“[flederal law is enforceable in state courts not because Congress has determined that federal courts *495would otherwise be burdened or that state courts might provide a more convenient forum—although both might well be true—but because the Constitution and laws passed pursuant to it are as much laws in the States as laws passed by the state legislature. The Supremacy Clause makes those laws the supreme Law of the Land, and charges state courts with a coordinate responsibility to enforce that law according to their regular modes of procedure. The laws of the United States are laws in the several States, and just as much binding on the citizens and courts thereof as the State laws are. . . . The two together form one system of jurisprudence, which constitutes the law of the land for the State; and the courts of the two jurisdictions are not foreign to each other, nor to be treated by each other as such, but as courts of the same country, having jurisdiction partly different and partly concurrent” (Howlett, 496 US at 367 [citations and internal quotation marks omitted]).
Federal and state courts, therefore, have concurrent jurisdiction over federal actions and state courts have a duty to enforce federal law to the same extent as federal courts except where a valid excuse to the exercise of such jurisdiction exists. Discussing this “valid excuse” exception, the Supreme Court articulated three corollaries:
“1. A state court may not deny a federal right, when the parties and controversy are properly before it, in the absence of valid excuse. . . . The existence of the jurisdiction creates an implication of duty to exercise it. . . .
“2. An excuse that is inconsistent with or violates federal law is not a valid excuse ....
“3. When a state court refuses jurisdiction because of a neutral state rule regarding the administration of the courts, we must act with utmost caution before deciding that it is obligated to entertain the claim. . . . The requirement that a state court of competent jurisdiction treat federal law as the law of the land does not necessarily include within it a requirement that the State create a court competent to hear [a] case in which the federal claim is pre*496sented. The general rule ... is that federal law takes the state courts as it finds them. . . . The States thus have great latitude to establish the structure and jurisdiction of their own courts. . . . In addition, States may apply their own neutral procedural rules to federal claims, unless those rules are [preempted] by federal law” (id. at 369-372 [citations and internal quotation marks omitted]).
Accordingly, a state may enact legislation limiting its subject matter jurisdiction over claims otherwise within its purview as long as the legislation is supported by a valid excuse. If a state applies a neutral rule of judicial administration, the state has a valid excuse for refusing to provide a court of competent jurisdiction to hear such claims. For the reasons set forth below, Correction Law § 24 is not a valid excuse.
First, the Supreme Court has not deemed the type of “jurisdictional” rule at bar—the effect of which is that Section 1983 damages claims against one group of state employees are barred while identical claims against other state employees are allowed—to be a valid excuse. There have only been three cases in which the Supreme Court has held that a valid excuse exists for a state court’s refusal to entertain a federal claim. These cases involved neutral rules of judicial administration—all markedly different from section 24—where the state court dismissed the federal claim: (1) on forum non conveniens grounds;2 (2) because the parties were nonresidents of the forum state;3 or (3) because the federal claim arose outside of the state’s territorial jurisdiction4 (see Howlett, 496 US at 374-375). Moreover, in determining what would be an acceptable valid excuse, the Supreme Court cautioned that “[t]he fact that a rule is denominated jurisdictional does not provide a court an excuse to avoid the obligation to enforce federal law if the rule does not reflect the concerns of power over the person and competence over the subject matter that jurisdictional rules are *497designed to protect” (id. at 381). As will be made clear below, Correction Law § 24 does neither.
Second, the majority’s view that section 24 does not discriminate against section 1983 damages claims is based, in my view, on an unduly narrow reading of United States Supreme Court precedent. In Martinez, the Supreme Court held that a California statute immunizing government conduct was not controlling in section 1983 litigation, even where such litigation took place in state court, because the application of the State’s immunity law would thwart the remedial purpose of section 1983 (444 US at 284). In so holding, the Court observed that “where the same type of claim, if arising under state law, would be enforced in the state courts, the state courts are generally not free to refuse enforcement of the federal claim” (id. at 283 n 7).
At issue in Felder was a Wisconsin notice-of-claim statute, which effectively shortened the statute of limitations for those seeking to assert federal civil rights claims. The Supreme Court held that the Wisconsin statute was preempted to the extent that it applied to section 1983 claims because the statute conflicted in both purpose and effect with the remedial objectives of section 1983, and its application to a section 1983 claim brought in state court could yield a different outcome than if it were brought in federal court (487 US at 138, 152). Although the statute in Felder did not purport to limit the jurisdiction of Wisconsin courts, if it had, the Court would have reached the same result (see Howlett, 496 US at 382-383 [stating that “(t)he force of the Supremacy Clause is not so weak that it can be evaded by mere mention of the word ‘jurisdiction’ ”]).
Moreover, in Howlett, the Supreme Court considered whether a Florida statute in which the State waived sovereign immunity from state tort actions—but not from section 1983 claims— against state defendants was a jurisdictional limitation on the power of the Florida state courts. The Court held that the statute violated the Supremacy Clause because the state courts entertained similar state claims not subject to the sovereign immunity defense; as such, section 1983 claims could not be precluded (see Howlett, 496 US at 375). Significantly, the Court noted that once a state opens its courts to hear section 1983 actions, it may not selectively exclude certain section 1983 actions by denominating state policies as jurisdictional (id. at 381).
In light of the foregoing, the majority’s nondiscrimination and “equality requirement” arguments are unavailing. I ac*498knowledge that Congress cannot require New York State to create a court of competent jurisdiction to entertain section 1983 claims. Here, however, one such court exists. New York State supreme courts are courts of general (i.e., “original, unlimited and unqualified”) jurisdiction (NY Const, art VI, § 7; Kagen v Kagen, 21 NY2d 532, 537 [1968]) that already hear and adjudicate state law claims for damages and all section 1983 claims—including claims for declaratory and injunctive relief and claims where money damages are sought—against state employees (except those employed by DOCS). Since the same type of state law claim—and federal law claim for that matter—is enforceable in state supreme court, the State cannot selectively refuse to enforce the federal claim.
Further, as noted by the majority, the State Legislature determined that the State, and not DOCS employees, should be liable for the wrongful conduct committed within the scope of employment (see Correction Law § 24 [2]). This policy judgment logically flows from the above-mentioned purpose of section 24. However, under the Supremacy Clause, “[t]he relative importance to the State of its own law is not material when there is a conflict with a valid federal law, for any state law, however clearly within a State’s acknowledged power, which interferes with or is contrary to federal law, must yield” (Felder, 487 US at 138 [internal quotation marks omitted]). Thus, neither the State’s policy judgment nor the purpose underlying such judgment qualifies as a neutral rule of judicial administration.
Third, in resolving the issue at bar, the broad goals and objectives of section 1983, and for that matter its progenitor (the Civil Rights Act of 1871), must be taken into account. Specifically, this Court should determine whether
“the application of the [state statute] to § 1983 actions brought in state courts [is] consistent with the goals of the federal civil rights laws, or [whether] the enforcement of [the state statute] instead stand[s] as an obstacle to the accomplishment and execution of the full purposes and objectives of Congress” (id. [internal quotation marks omitted]).
Here, Correction Law § 24, which by its plain terms immunizes DOCS employees from liability for certain conduct ac*499tionable under section 1983,5 6is inconsistent with section 1983’s remedial purposes in several important respects. For those litigants who bring their section 1983 claims in state court, section 24: (1) interferes with section 1983 by barring litigants from receiving compensatory relief directly from the individual state actor(s) who committed the actionable conduct; and (2) places significant obstacles in front of litigants seeking to secure a full recovery.6
Additionally, a state may not extend its sovereign immunity and pass legislation immunizing “an official from liability for injuries compensable under federal law” (Howlett, 496 US at 360, citing Martinez). Comparing the statutes in Howlett and the case at bar makes clear that both states sought to cloak their officials in their own sovereign immunity. Put simply, under the statute in Howlett, the school board was “the state” and therefore immune. Here, damages suits based on the employees’ actions can only be brought “as a claim against the state” (Correction Law § 24 [2]).7 The result, in both cases, is that plaintiff’s only state-court remedy is a suit against the State, which, pursuant to the Eleventh Amendment of the Federal Constitution and for section 1983 purposes, is not a “person” that can be held liable under section 1983.8 Therefore, plaintiffs are left with no remedy in state court against those individuals who would be liable under section 1983. Given the goals and objectives of section 1983, Congress could not have envisioned such a result.
*500III.
In conclusion, I stress two points which make clear why the Appellate Division order should be reversed. First, if you strip away the veneer of the majority’s arguments, section 24—a statute which, on its face, precludes anyone, including other DOCS employees and prisoners, from bringing damages claims against DOCS personnel—is not a neutral jurisdictional barrier to a particular type of claim. In reality, section 24 functions as an immunity statute that allows state courts to selectively exclude prisoner suits for damages against DOCS personnel. Second, contrary to the majority’s view, section 24 simply does not fall under the category of what could be a “valid excuse” (i.e., section 24 does not reflect the concerns of power over the litigants and competence over subject matter). Here, the state supreme court has jurisdiction over the parties and, based on the State’s willingness to allow the adjudication of all section 1983 claims against other state employees, competence over the type of claim at bar. Further, plaintiffs claims arose within the State’s territorial jurisdiction. Based on the foregoing, Correction Law § 24 does not afford a valid excuse to selectively exclude section 1983 damages suits against DOCS personnel and is, therefore, constitutionally infirm under the Supremacy Clause.
Chief Judge Kaye and Judges Ciparick and Read concur with Judge Graffeo; Judge Jones dissents and votes to reverse in a separate opinion in which Judges Smith and Pigott concur.
Orders affirmed, without costs.

. The purpose of the Civil Rights Act of 1871 was to address the lawlessness in the southern states after the Civil War (see Cong Globe, 42nd Cong, 1st Sess, at 236 [1871]) and to enforce the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment (see Monroe v Pape, 365 US 167, 171 [1961], overruled by Monell v New York City Dept. of Social Servs., 436 US 658 [1978] [Monroe was overruled insofar as it held that local governments are wholly immune from suit under section 1983]). As the Supreme Court stated:
“The [Act] grew out of a message sent to Congress by President Grant on March 23, 1871, reading:
“ ‘A condition of affairs now exists in some States of the Union rendering life and property insecure and the carrying of the mails and the collection of the revenue dangerous. The proof that such a condition of affairs exists in some localities is now before the Senate. That the power to correct these evils is beyond the control of State authorities I do not doubt; that the power of the Executive of the United States, acting within the limits of existing laws, is sufficient for present emergencies is not clear. Therefore, I urgently recommend such legislation as in the judgment of Congress shall effectually secure life, liberty, and property, and the enforcement of law in all parts of the United States. . .
“[The legislation, which was enacted on April 20, 1871, had three main aims.]
*493“First, it might. . . override certain kinds of state laws. . . . “Second, it provided a remedy where state law was inadequate. . . .
“The third aim was to provide a federal remedy where the state remedy, though adequate in theory, was not available in practice. . . .
“The debates are replete with references to the lawless conditions existing in the South in 1871. ... It was not the unavailability of state remedies but the failure of certain States to enforce the laws with an equal hand that furnished the powerful momentum behind this ‘force bill.’ . . .
“[T]he remedy created was . . . against those who representing a State in some capacity were unable or unwilling to enforce a state law” (Monroe, 365 US at 172-176 [footnotes omitted]).

. See Missouri ex rel. Southern R. Co. v Mayfield, 340 US 1, 4 (1950) (holding that state court could apply the forum non conveniens doctrine to bar adjudication of action under Federal Employer’s Liability Act [FELA] if the state “enforce[d] its policy impartially so as not to involve a discrimination against [FELA] suits” [citation omitted]).

. See Douglas v New York, N. H. & H. R. Co., 279 US 377 (1929) (holding that state statute properly permitted discretionary dismissal of both federal and state claims where neither party was a resident of the forum state).

. See Herb v Pitcairn, 324 US 117, 123 (1945).

. See Baker v Coughlin, 77 F3d 12, 15 (2d Cir 1996) (holding that “by its plain terms, [section] 24 governs the substantive rights of corrections officers by conferring upon them an immunity from liability for activities that fall within the scope of the statute”).

. Under section 24, a litigant can bring section 1983 actions for declaratory and injunctive relief in state court. However, if the litigant is to have a full recovery, as contemplated by section 1983, he or she must seek money damages in federal court. Thus, to obtain a full recovery, a litigant has to split claims and bring two separate actions in two separate jurisdictions. This places an onerous burden on litigants. (See also Woodward v State of New York, 23 AD3d 852, 857 [3d Dept 2005, Kane, J., dissenting].)

. By this requirement, section 24 has redefined and limited the section 1983 cause of action, i.e., it eliminates a plaintiffs federal right to sue a DOCS employee, in his or her personal capacity, for damages in state court.

. See Howlett, 496 US at 365 (stating “[a]s we held last Term in Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U. S. 58 [1989], an entity with Eleventh Amendment immunity is not a ‘person’ within the meaning of [section] 1983”).