Court Opinion

ID: 9449417
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:11:53.079536+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:49.886161
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
PER CURIAM.
We have received and have given careful consideration to the supplemental *114briefs submitted by the parties in accordance with our memorandum filed May 17, 1963, and the brief submitted by the Attorney General of the State of New York, as amicus curiae. We reaffirm the views expressed in our original opinion and deny the petition for rehearing. There will be no further oral argument.
It is quite true that no New York court has ever stated the applicable rule in precisely the manner formulated by us. On the other hand, no case seems to have arisen presenting the special factual situation' now before us and the claim that the rule announced by us is at odds with the legislative policy and the trend of law in New York is not supported by the authorities cited to us.1
We do not find the arguments advanced in opposition to our legal analysis of the case either persuasive or substantial. If the reason for the doctrine of governmental immunity ceases to exist in a given factual situation, we do no more than hold that the doctrine becomes inapplicable. The authorities now pressed upon our attention are all distinguishable and we cite them in the footnote merely for purposes of reference.2 What the principal argument of the District comes down to is that while We should adopt a reasonable application of the traditional governmental-proprietary distinction, at the same time intelligent jurisprudence must cease once the talismanic determination of “governmental” activity has been made.
The District earnestly assures us that the court below cannot conveniently make a finding on the remand to the effect that the attachment levy will or will not “substantially interfere with the performance of essential public functions” by the District, because an inquiry into the facts will be too “difficult,” that the rule we have formulated is not “workable” or “practical.” We had thought this bugaboo had long since been laid to rest. This argument has been advanced for generations and always to frustrate the doing of substantial justice whenever the facts of a given situation are complicated. But the courts have managed to deal successfully with matters far more intricate. We think the rule we have formulated is sufficiently, precise and of such limited scope that it can be applied on the remand without delay or inconvenience, especially in the light of the explicit guidelines we have already set forth.
*115That New York’s financial community will suffer as the result of our decision in this case we gravely doubt. And the suggestion that our ruling will adversely influence the fate of funds of New York governmental instrumentalities in other States seems to us to be even more farfetched.
We had not intended to do more than afford the parties an opportunity to advance such contentions as they might wish to submit relative to the novel features of the principles developed in our original opinion. But the District has included a new point not raised in the court below or in the briefs and oral argument on the appeal from Judge Noonan’s order, to the effect that it is a substantive condition of the Washington statute creating the District (Revised Code of Washington, Title 54.16.110) that it may not be sued in the New York forum; and that, notwithstanding the New York rule as to governmental immunity from attachment levy, and despite the substantial contacts which New York has with the transactions here involved, the Full Faith and Credit Clause, Article IV, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, requires the dismissal of this action. We reject this contention, not only because not within the ambit of our memorandum filed May 17, 1963, but also for the reason that the highest court of the State of Washington has authoritatively construed the state statute relied upon to concern only the procedural matter of venue and to raise no substantive jurisdictional issues, Public Utility District No. 1 of Kitsap, County v. Puget Sound Power & Light Co., 1953, 43 Wash.2d 1, 260 P.2d 315.3-See Tennessee Coal, Iron & R.R. Co. v. George, 1914, 233 U.S. 354, 34 S.Ct. 587, 58 L.Ed. 997.4
Petition for rehearing denied.

. New York Court of Claims Act, § 8; Benz v. New York State Thruway Authority, 1961, 9 N.Y.2d 486, 490, 215 N.Y.S.2d 47, 174 N.E.2d 727, cert. dismissed, 1962, 369 U.S. 147, 82 S.Ct. 674, 7 L.Ed. 2d 634; Matter of New York Post Corp. v. Moses, 1961, 10 N.Y.2d 199, 203, 219 N.Y.S.2d 7, 176 N.E.2d 709; Matter of Brown v. Board of Trustees of Town of Hamptonburg, School District No. 4, 1952, 303 N.Y. 484, 488, 104 N.E.2d 866, 34 A.L.R.2d 720. The Attorney General also refers us to Easley v. New York State Thruway Authority, 1956, 1 N.Y.2d 374, 378-379, 153 N.Y.S.2d 28, 135 N.E.2d. 572.

. Court of Claims Act, § 20(3) ; Comment, 17 Cornell L.Q. 254 (1932) ; 10 Carmody-Wait, Cyclopedia of New York Practice, § 91, page 135 (1954) ; 1 Dillon, Municipal Corporations, § 248 (5th ed. 1911) ; Fordham, Local Government Law, page 623 (1949) ; Fordham, Garnishment of Public Corporations, 39 W.Va.L.Q. 224, 225 (1933) ; Larson v. Domestic & Foreign Commerce Corp., 1949, 337 U.S. 682, 704-705, 69 S.Ct. 1457, 93 L.Ed. 1628; Ashton v. Cameron County Water Improvement District No. 1, 1936, 298 U.S. 513, 534, 56 S.Ct. 892, 80 L.Ed. 1309 (dissenting opinion) ; East St. Louis v. United States ex rel. Zebley, 1884, 110 U.S. 321, 324-325, 4 S.Ct. 21, 28 L.Ed. 162; Murdoch v. City of Asbury Park, S.D.N.Y., 1942, 48 F.Supp. 18; Leonard v. City of Brooklyn, 1877, 71 N.Y. 498, 501; Matter of Deansville Cemetery Ass’n, 1876, 66 N.Y. 569, 572; City of Beacon v. County of Dutchess, 285 App. Div. 1050, 139 N.Y.S.2d 462 (2d Dep’t 1955) ; Matter of Donner-Hanna Coke Corp. v. Eberhardt, 156 Misc. 41, 42-43, 280 N.Y.S. 607, 609 (Sup.Ct.1935).
The Attorney General also relies upon Darlington v. City of New York, 1865, 31 N.Y. 164, 192-193, and the trilogy of New York attachment cases, discussed in our original opinion (Van Horn, Harman and Doyle).

. The Washington court reached this conclusion despite the fact that Laws of 1931, Chapter 1, § 6(k), p. 18, provided that “all suits against the public utility district shall be brought in the county in which the public utility district is located.” The court noted, 43 Wash.2d at 3, 260 P.2d at 317, that the original Revised Code of Washington (adopted by the 1950 Extraordinary Session of the Legislature) substituted the word “may” for the word “shall.” Contrary to the District’s contention that this ease construed a “predecessor statute,” the Legislature’s retention of the word “may” by Enacted Laws 1955, Chapter 390, § 12, p. 409, only confirms that the result there reached ís determinative of the present state of the law.

. The New York rule on the issue of whether a foreign governmental body has a local situs so that it cannot be sued outside its-own territorial limits, discussed in footnote eleven of our original opinion, seems to have been settled by the New York courts in Van Horn v. Kittitas County, Wash., 28 Misc. 333, 59 N.Y.S. 883. (Sup.Ct.1899), aff’d mem., 46 App.Div. 623, 61 N.Y.S. 1150 (1st Dep’t 1899). At any rate, questions of venue or forum,' non conveniens have not been raised properly and cannot be considered by us at. this time.