COMMUNITY BOARD SEVEN OF THE BOROUGH OF MANHATTAN v. RICHARD L. SCHAFFER,
&C., ET AL.,
84 N.Y.2d 148 (1994).
June 16, 1994
1 No. 88 (1994 NY Int. 107)
Decided June 16, 1994
_________________________________________________________________
This opinion is uncorrected and subject to revision before publication
in the New York Reports.
TITONE, J.:
Petitioner, a community board established by the New York City Charter
(New York City Charter § 2800), brought the present proceeding to
challenge respondents' right to deny it access to certain documents
under the New York State Freedom of Information Law ("FOIL"). The only
issue on this appeal is whether petitioner, a legislatively created
entity, has the capacity to maintain a proceeding such as this. In
holding that it does not, we stress that the question of petitioner's
capacity to sue is a matter allied but conceptually distinct from the
question of its standing and that, in this case, the standards for
establishing the former were not satisfied.
Petitioner community board represents a district in Manhattan that
encompasses the Penn Central Railyards, a tract that runs between the
Hudson River and West End Avenue and is bounded by West 59th and West
72nd Streets. Under the City Charter's Uniform Land Use Procedure
("ULURP"), petitioner's responsibilities include studying proposed
changes in land use within its district and making recommendations to
the Borough President and City Planning Commission regarding such
proposals (New York City Charter § 197-c(e)).
In 1990, petitioner wrote to the Department of City Planning
requesting certain material that had been prepared in connection with
a proposal to erect "Trump City," a massive office, residential and
commercial complex, on the Penn Central Railyards tract. Because the
proposal entailed zoning and land use changes, the project was subject
to ULURP review (see, New York City Charter § 197-c). In seeking the
project's draft "restrictive declaration" and all correspondences
relating to it, (n 1) petitioner invoked the Freedom of Information
Law (Public Officers Law §§ 84-90), which requires government agencies
to provide the public with access to their records except in certain
enumerated circumstances.
SNIPPETS:
Petitioner, a community board established by the New York City Charter, brought the present
In holding that it does not, we stress that the question of petitioner's capacity to sue is a
Petitioner community board represents a district in Manhattan that encompasses the Penn
Because the proposal entailed zoning and land use changes, the project was subject to ULURP
In seeking the project's draft "restrictive declaration" and all correspondences relating to
This determination was subsequently upheld by the Department's Appeals Officer ).
In support of its position, petitioner cited the provisions of FOIL, as well as the
Noting that petitioner was seeking only the limited relief of document disclosure rather than
The Appellate Division upheld the Supreme Court's decision, reasoning that petitioner's
Initially, we note that we do not deem it appropriate to dismiss the proceeding for mootness,
The issue presented here -- whether a community board has the capacity to bring an article 78
Thus, the exception to the mootness doctrine that was delineated in Matter of Hearst v Clyne
We note at the outset that the concept of capacity is often confused with the concept of
Business corporations, for example, are creatures of statute and, as such, require statutory
Rather, their right to sue, if it exists at all, must be derived from the relevant enabling
The principle is a well known one, originating in the more general canon that "a creature of
With respect to the capacity question, we stated that the authority of a government agency to
for New York City, Staff Report, Community Boards; see also, New York City Charter § 395; see
The report also noted that a prior opinion by Corporation Counsel had construed the
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