Court Opinion

ID: 9390736
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-28 15:00:30.149244+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:36.415779
License: Public Domain

22-2095
   Global Leadership Found. v. City of New York

                                UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                    FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
                                                  SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT.
CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS
PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE
32.1 AND THIS COURT=S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER
IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE
FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION
“SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A
COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
                At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second
   Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square,
   in the City of New York, on the 28th day of April, two thousand twenty-three.
   PRESENT:

                     BARRINGTON D. PARKER,
                     DENNY CHIN,
                     RICHARD J. SULLIVAN,
                         Circuit Judges.
   _______________________________________________________________

   GLOBAL LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION,

                               Plaintiff-Appellant,

                     v.                                                           No. 22-2095

   CITY OF NEW YORK, MAYOR ERIC L. ADAMS,
   NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE,
   SHERIF SOLIMAN, MICHAEL HYMAN,
   TIMOTHY SHEARES, PIERRE DEJEAN,
   TAX COMMISSION OF CITY OF NEW YORK,
   FRANCES HENN, DOES 1–10, CARMELA QUINTOS,

                               Defendants-Appellees. ∗
   _______________________________________________________________

   ∗
       The Clerk of Court is respectfully directed to amend the official case caption as set forth above.
For Plaintiff-Appellant:                     VIOLET ELIZABETH GRAYSON, New
                                             York, NY.

For Defendants-Appellees:                    EDAN BURKETT, Assistant Corporation
                                             Counsel, for Sylvia O. Hinds-Radix,
                                             Corporation Counsel of the City of
                                             New York, New York, NY.

      Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern

District of New York (Denise Cote, Judge).

      UPON     DUE     CONSIDERATION,           IT   IS   HEREBY    ORDERED,

ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

      Global Leadership Foundation (“GLF”) – a “secular charity” established by

Hee Nam Bae and his family to promote educational and cultural enrichment

opportunities for students and interns in New York City, J. App’x at 44–45, 71 –

appeals from the district court’s order dismissing GLF’s first-amended complaint

against the City of New York and other associated entities and individuals

(collectively, “Defendants”).   We assume the parties’ familiarity with the

underlying facts, procedural history, and issues on appeal.

      GLF’s operative complaint was filed in May 2022 and alleged that

Defendants violated GLF’s First Amendment rights by denying it property-tax

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exemptions and significantly increasing the assessed value of its property in

Queens in retaliation for the Bae family’s public opposition to an East Harlem

development plan; GLF also alleged that Defendants discriminated against GLF

by favoring religious organizations over secular charities.       In July 2022, the

district court dismissed GLF’s complaint, concluding that it lacked subject-matter

jurisdiction to entertain GLF’s claims seeking declaratory relief under the Tax

Injunction Act (“TIA”), which prohibits district courts from “enjoin[ing],

suspend[ing,] or restrain[ing] the assessment, levy[,] or collection of any tax under

State law where a plain, speedy[,] and efficient remedy may be had in the courts

of such State.” 28 U.S.C. § 1341. The district court further declined to exercise

jurisdiction over GLF’s claims for damages under the related doctrine of comity,

which “restrains federal courts from entertaining claims for relief that risk

disrupting state tax administration,” including claims for damages, Levin v. Com.

Energy, Inc., 560 U.S. 413, 417 (2010), where plaintiffs can access “state remedies

that are plain, adequate, and complete,” Abuzaid v. Mattox, 726 F.3d 311, 315 (2d

Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks omitted).

      We review a district court’s decision to dismiss claims for lack of

subject-matter jurisdiction based on the TIA de novo and a decision to abstain from

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exercising jurisdiction over claims based on the comity doctrine for abuse of

discretion. See Dorce v. City of New York, 2 F.4th 82, 93–94 (2d Cir. 2021). That

said, “when we review a court’s decision to abstain from exercising jurisdiction,

the abuse[-]of[-]discretion standard is more rigorous than that which is generally

employed such that there is little practical distinction from de[-]novo review.” Id.

at 94 (internal quotation marks omitted). Applying these standards, we reject

GLF’s two challenges to the district court’s orders.

      First, GLF contends that neither the TIA nor the comity doctrine bars its

claims because New York’s state courts do not provide a sufficiently “speedy”

remedy. 28 U.S.C. § 1341; see also Fair Assessment in Real Estate Ass’n v. McNary,

454 U.S. 100, 116 n.8 (1981) (equating the TIA and comity-doctrine standards

regarding the adequacy of state-court remedies). As proof of this deficiency in

the state’s procedures, GLF points to its own ongoing Article 78 proceeding, see

N.Y. C.P.L.R. 7801 et seq., in which it seeks to reverse Defendants’ tax-exemption

determination.    This argument is easily dispatched. As a general matter, we

have repeatedly held that “New York does provide ‘plain, speedy[,] and efficient’

forums for individuals to bring constitutional challenges to its tax laws.” Abuzaid,

726 F.3d at 316 (emphasis added); see also Long Island Lighting Co. v. Town of

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Brookhaven, 889 F.2d 428, 431–33 (2d Cir. 1989). And to the extent that a further

individualized inquiry into the speediness of GLF’s pending state-court litigation

is required, the fact that the proceeding took four years – and that any appeal will

take additional time – does not establish procedural inadequacy, see Long Island

Lighting Co., 889 F.2d at 433 (holding that a New York state-court action that

“lingered [for] over ten years in pretrial proceedings” was nevertheless sufficiently

speedy). 1 As a result, we decline to disturb the district court’s application of the

TIA and the comity doctrine to GLF’s claims on the basis of the alleged slowness

of the New York court system. Cf. Rosewell v. LaSalle Nat’l Bank, 450 U.S. 503, 518–

21 (1981) (“Nowhere in the [TIA] did Congress suggest that the remedy [m]ust be

the speediest.”).

       Second, GLF contends that even if the New York state courts do provide an

adequately speedy remedy, the comity doctrine should not bar its claims for

damages because they involve core First Amendment rights.                      Again, we are

unconvinced.

1 We take judicial notice of the publicly available docket for GLF’s Article 78 petition filed in
September 2018, which shows that GLF amended its petition in late 2020, that the Supreme Court
of the State of New York denied the petition in September 2022, and that GLF filed a notice of
appeal that same month. See Hirsch v. Arthur Andersen & Co., 72 F.3d 1085, 1092 (2d Cir. 1995);
Mangiafico v. Blumenthal, 471 F.3d 391, 398 (2d Cir. 2006).
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      In general, the comity doctrine bars damages claims like GLF’s that “risk

disrupting state tax administration” if “plain, adequate, and complete” remedies

exist in state court. Abuzaid, 726 F.3d at 315–16 (quoting Fair Assessment, 454 U.S.

at 116) (also noting that New York courts so provide); see also Joseph v. Hyman, 659

F.3d 215, 219–21 (2d Cir. 2011). To be sure, the Supreme Court has identified three

factors that “counsel[] in favor of federal court adjudication despite the general

rule of comity.” Joseph, 659 F.3d at 219. One of those factors is whether the case

involves “classifications subject to heightened scrutiny or fundamental rights”

rather than “an issue of economic discrimination.” Dorce, 2 F.4th at 100 (quoting

Levin, 560 U.S. at 426) (internal quotation marks omitted and alterations adopted).

But here, the district court properly acknowledged that GLF’s claims “implicate[d]

fundamental rights under the Free Speech and Establishment Clauses,” J. App’x

at 99, before also finding that the other two Dorce factors – whether “federal and

state courts [are] equally well suited” to choose among possible remedies and

whether the plaintiff’s “own tax liability” is at issue, Dorce, 2 F.4th at 100 (quoting

Levin, 560 U.S. at 431) – weighed heavily against exercising jurisdiction. As GLF

has presented no argument on appeal disputing the district court’s determinations

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on these latter two factors, we cannot say that the district court exceeded its

discretion in declining to exercise jurisdiction based on the comity doctrine.

      We have considered GLF’s remaining arguments and find them to be

without merit. Accordingly, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

                                      FOR THE COURT:
                                      Catherine O=Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

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