Highest court in the U.S. state of New York
The
New York Court of Appeals
is the
highest court
in the
Unified Court System
of the
State of New York
. It consists of seven judges: the
Chief Judge
and six associate judges, who are appointed by the
governor
and confirmed by the
state senate
to 14-year terms. The Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals also heads administration of the state's court system, and thus is also known as the Chief Judge of the State of New York. The Court of Appeals was founded in 1847 and is located in the
New York Court of Appeals Building
in
Albany, New York
.
Nomenclature
[
edit
]
In the
Federal court system
, and all other
U.S. states
, the
court of last resort
is known as the "Supreme Court". New York, however, calls its lower courts the "
Supreme Court
" – consisting of the trial court and the intermediate appellate court, known as the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court – and the court of last resort the Court of Appeals.
Further adding to the confusion is New York's terminology for jurists on its top two courts. Those who sit on its Supreme Court are referred to as "Justices" – the title reserved in most states and the Federal court system for members of the highest court – whereas the members of New York's highest court, the Court of Appeals, are simply called "Judges".
[
citation needed
]
Jurisdiction
[
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]
The Court sits in
Albany
. Here it hears oral arguments in a 2009 case over the
Atlantic Yards
development in Brooklyn.
Appeals are taken from the four departments of the
New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
to the Court of Appeals. In some cases, an appeal lies of right, but in most cases, permission (or "leave") to appeal must be obtained, either from the Appellate Division itself or from the Court of Appeals. In civil cases, the Appellate Division panel or Court of Appeals votes on petitions for leave to appeal; in most criminal cases, however, the petition for leave to appeal is referred to a single Justice or Judge, whose decision whether to grant or deny leave is final. In some criminal cases, some appellate decisions by an Appellate Term or County Court are also appealable to the Court of Appeals, either of right or by permission.
In a few cases, an appeal can be taken from the court of first instance to the Court of Appeals, bypassing the Appellate Division. Direct appeals are authorized from final trial-court decisions in civil cases where the only issue is the constitutionality of a federal or state statute. In criminal cases, a direct appeal to the Court of Appeals is mandatory where a death sentence is imposed, but this provision has been irrelevant since New York's death-penalty law was declared unconstitutional. Decisions by the court can be appealed to the
Supreme Court of the United States
but only in cases containing a point of federal or consitutional law.
Decisions from the Court of Appeals are
binding authority
on all lower courts, and persuasive authority for itself in later cases.
[1]
Every opinion, memorandum, and motion of the Court of Appeals sent to the
New York State Reporter
is required to be published in the
New York Reports
.
Administration of the courts
[
edit
]
The
New York State Unified Court System
is a unified state court system that functions under the
Chief Judge of the New York Court of Appeals
who is the
ex officio
Chief Judge of New York. The Chief Judge supervises the seven-judge Court of Appeals and is chair of the
Administrative Board of the Courts
.
In addition, the Chief Judge establishes standards and administrative policies after consultation with the Administrative Board and approval by the Court of Appeals.
The
Chief Administrator
(or Chief Administrative Judge if a judge) is appointed by the Chief Judge with the advice and consent of the Administrative Board and oversees the administration and operation of the court system, assisted by the
Office of Court Administration
.
[6]
The eleven-member
New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct
receives complaints, investigates, and makes initial determinations regarding judicial conduct and may recommend admonition, censure, or removal from office to the Chief Judge and Court of Appeals.
The Court of Appeals promulgates rules for
admission
to
practice law
in New York.
(The
New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division
is responsible for actual admissions.
[10]
) The
New York State Reporter
is the official
reporter of decisions
and is appointed by the Court of Appeals.
Judges
[
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]
Judge
|
Born
|
Joined
|
Term ends
|
Mandatory retirement
[a]
|
Appointed by
|
Law school
|
Rowan D. Wilson
,
Chief Judge
|
(
1960-09-03
)
September 3, 1960
(age 63)
|
February 6, 2017
[b]
|
December 31, 2030
[c]
|
Kathy Hochul
(D)
[d]
|
Harvard
|
Jenny Rivera
|
(
1960-12-08
)
December 8, 1960
(age 63)
|
February 11, 2013
|
February 10, 2027
|
December 31, 2030
|
Andrew Cuomo
(D)
|
NYU
|
Michael J. Garcia
|
(
1961-10-08
)
October 8, 1961
(age 62)
|
February 8, 2016
|
February 7, 2030
|
December 31, 2031
|
Andrew Cuomo
(D)
|
Albany
|
Madeline Singas
|
(
1966-06-06
)
June 6, 1966
(age 58)
|
June 8, 2021
|
June 7, 2035
|
December 31, 2036
|
Andrew Cuomo
(D)
|
Fordham
|
Anthony Cannataro
|
(
1965-07-03
)
July 3, 1965
(age 58)
|
June 8, 2021
|
June 7, 2035
|
December 31, 2035
|
Andrew Cuomo
(D)
|
NYLS
|
Shirley Troutman
|
(
1959-09-15
)
September 15, 1959
(age 64)
|
January 12, 2022
|
December 31, 2029
[c]
|
Kathy Hochul
(D)
|
Albany
|
Caitlin Halligan
|
(
1966-12-14
)
December 14, 1966
(age 57)
|
April 19, 2023
|
December 31, 2036
[c]
|
Kathy Hochul
(D)
|
Georgetown
|
- ^
All judges must retire on December 31 of the year that they turn 70.
- ^
Took office as Chief Judge on April 18, 2023.
- ^
a
b
c
Judge reaches the mandatory retirement deadline before the end of their term.
- ^
Originally appointed by Governor
Andrew Cuomo
(D) as Associate Judge. Subsequently appointed by Governor
Kathy Hochul
(D) as Chief Judge.
History
[
edit
]
The 1842 courthouse of the New York Court of Appeals in
Albany
, Henry Rector, architect
The Court of Appeals was created by the
New York State Constitution
of 1846 to replace both the
Court for the Correction of Errors
and the
Court of Chancery
, and had eight members. Four judges were elected by general ballot at the State elections, the other four were chosen annually from among the
Supreme Court
justices. The first four judges elected at the
special judicial state election
in June 1847 were
Freeborn G. Jewett
(to a term of two and a half years),
Greene C. Bronson
(to a term of four and a half years),
Charles H. Ruggles
(to a term of six and a half years), and
Addison Gardiner
(to a term of eight and a half years). They took office on July 5, 1847. Afterwards, every two years, one judge was elected in odd-numbered years to an eight-year term.
[11]
In case of a vacancy, a judge was temporarily appointed by the Governor,
[12]
and at the next odd-year state election a judge was elected for the remainder of the term.
[13]
The Chief Judge was always that one of the elected judges who had the shortest remaining term. Besides, the Court had a
Clerk
who was elected to a three-year term.
In
1869
, the proposed new State Constitution was rejected by the voters. Only the "Judicial Article", which re-organized the New York Court of Appeals, was adopted by a small majority, with 247,240 for and 240,442 against it. The Court of Appeals was wholly re-organised, taking effect on July 4, 1870. All sitting judges were legislated out of office, and seven new judges were elected by general ballot at a
special election on May 17, 1870
.
[14]
Democrat
Sanford E. Church
defeated Republican
Henry R. Selden
for Chief Judge. The tickets for associate judges had only four names each and the voters could cast only four ballots, so that four judges were chosen by the majority
[15]
and two by the minority.
[16]
Martin Grover
was the only sitting judge who was re-elected. The judges were elected to a 14-year term, which most judges did not complete, since the Constitution mandated the retirement of the judges at the end of the calendar year in which they reached the age of 70. In case of a vacancy due to death or resignation, a judge was appointed by the Governor until a successor was chosen at the next State election. To replace retiring or appointed judges, all substitutes were elected to full 14-year terms.
A view of the courthouse's neoclassical
portico
In 1889, a "Second Division" of the Court of Appeals was established temporarily to help to decide the large number of cases. Its seven members were designated
[17]
by Governor
David B. Hill
, chosen from the
New York Supreme Court
's General Term benches. Chief Judge was
Daniel L. Follett
. Among its members were
Alton B. Parker
and Joseph Potter.
[18]
The Second Division was continued through 1890.
[19]
In 1891, the State Constitutional Commission, headed by
William B. Hornblower
drafted an amendment to abolish the Second Division.
[20]
A constitutional amendment adopted in November 1899 permitted the Governor, at the request of a majority of the judges of the Court of Appeals, to designate up to four justices of the Supreme Court to serve as associate judges of the Court of Appeals until the Court's calendar was reduced below two hundred cases. This goal was reached only in 1921, and henceforth no more Supreme Court justices were designated under the amendment of 1899 to serve on the Court of Appeals.
Jacob D. Fuchsberg
and
Lawrence H. Cooke
were the last judges elected by general ballot at the State election in November 1974. Afterwards the judges have been nominated by the Governor and confirmed by the
New York State Senate
.
Notable cases
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]
The Court of Appeals has decided some of the most important cases in American jurisprudence.
[21]
Conflict of laws
[
edit
]
- Babcock v. Jackson
(
Fuld
, J.): holding that the law of the jurisdiction governs that has the strongest interest in the resolution of the particular issue presented.
Statutory interpretation
[
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]
Contracts
[
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]
- Wood v. Lucy, Lady Duff-Gordon
(
Cardozo
, J.): was both a minor
cause celebre
at the time and an influential development in the law of contract
consideration
.
- Jacob & Youngs v. Kent
(Cardozo, J.): held that expectation damages arising from a breach of contract are limited to the diminution of the property's value if the undoing of the breach was an economic waste.
- Boomer v. Atlantic Cement Co.
(
Bergan
, J.): the court granted an injunction against the cement plant for nuisance, but permitted the plant to pay permanent damages after which the court would vacate the injunction. In essence, the court permitted the plant to pay the net present value of its effects and to continue polluting.
Corporations
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]
- Berkey v. Third Avenue Railway Co
(Cardozo, J.): held that the Third Avenue Railway Co was not liable for the debts of the subsidiary. It was necessary that the domination of the parent company over the subsidiary was required to be complete, in order for the parent company to be treated as liable for the debts of the subsidiary. It was needed that the subsidiary be merely the alter ego of the parent, or that the subsidiary be thinly capitalized, so as to perpetrate a fraud on the creditors.
- Meinhard v. Salmon
(Cardozo, J.): held that managing partner in a joint venture had a fiduciary duty to inform the investing partner of an opportunity that would arise after the scheduled termination of the partnership.
- Walkovszky v. Carlton
(
Fuld
, J.): refused to pierce the veil on account of undercapitalization alone.
Criminal law
[
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]
- People v. Molineux
(
Werner
, J.): held that using 'evidence' of an unproven previous act of murder against the defendant in a subsequent unrelated trial violated the basic tenet of presumption of innocence, and, therefore, such evidence was inadmissible
- People v. Onofre
(
Jones
): held that it is not the function of the penal law to provide for the enforcement of moral or theological values.
- People v. Antommarchi
(
Simons
, J.): affirming the statutory rights of a defendant to be present during any sidebar questioning of a prospective juror concerning his or her impartiality.
- People v. Goetz
(
Wachtler
, CJ): held that 1) The defense of justification, which permits the use of deadly physical force, is not a purely subjective standard; the actor must not only have the subjective belief that deadly physical force is necessary, but those beliefs must also be objectively reasonable. 2) The mere appearance of perjured testimony given before the Grand Jury is not sufficient to sustain a dismissal of an indictment.
- People v. Scott
(Hancock, J.), held that the protections against unlawful search and seizure in the state constitution are broad enough that, contrary to the
open-fields doctrine
affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in
Oliver v. United States
, a landowner can assert a
reasonable expectation of privacy
against a
warrantless search
of
all
property, not just that within the
curtilage
of the house, as long as they have made some effort to exclude the public such as posting or fencing the property or gating roads. New York is one of five states where courts have declined to adopt the doctrine.
- People v. LaValle
(
G.B Smith
, J.): The current statute of capital punishment in the state of New York was unconstitutional as it violated article one, section six of the state constitution.
Torts
[
edit
]
- Devlin v. Smith
: The Court held that a duty to third parties "exists when a defect is such as to render the article in itself imminently dangerous, and serious injury to any person using it is a natural and probable consequence of its use." The Court further held that scaffolding to be used in the painting of a courthouse was an inherently dangerous article.
- Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital
(Cardozo, J.): established principles of informed consent and respondeat superior in United States law
- MacPherson v. Buick Motor Co.
(Cardozo, J.): helped signal the end of the law's attachment with
privity
as a source of duty in
products liability
. This is the foundational doctrine underlying nearly all modern
product liability
lawsuits.
- Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co.
(Cardozo, J.): was important in the development of the concept of the
proximate cause
in tort law.
- Martin v. Herzog
(Cardozo, J.): holding that the unexcused violation of a statutory duty is
negligence per se
and a jury does not have the power to relax the duty that one traveler on the highway owes under a statute to another on the same highway.
- Chysky v. Drake Bros. Co.
(
McLaughlin
, J.): The Court held that a plaintiff cannot recover from a defendant based on implied warranty when she does not have contractual privity with him; thus, a plaintiff cannot recover from a defendant who sold her employer food unfit for consumption, because the defendant's implied warranty extended only to the employer.
- Tedla v. Ellman
(
Lehman
, J.): the court held that because the violation occurred in a situation not anticipated by the drafters of the statute and was in keeping with the spirit of the statute, it did not constitute negligence.
- Akins v. Glens Falls City School District
(
Jasen
, J.): The Court held that the
Baseball Rule
, an exception to tort law under which spectators at sporting events cannot hold teams, players or venues liable if they are injured by a ball leaving the field as long as some protected seating was available, is still valid under
comparative negligence
, the first time it was challenged under that doctrine.
- Trimarco v. Klein
(
Fuchsberg
, J.): held that custom and usage is highly relevant evidence related to the reasonable person standard but it does not per se define the scope of negligence.
See also
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]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Birnbaum, Edward L.; Belen, Ariel E.; Grasso, Carl T. (2012).
New York Trial Notebook
(6th ed.). James Publishing. pp. 1?23.
ISBN
978-1-58012-104-0
. Archived from
the original
on 2015-01-26
. Retrieved
2023-03-23
.
- ^
"Office of Court Administration"
.
New York State Office of Court Administration
. Retrieved
13 July
2013
.
- ^
22
NYCRR
§ 520.1
- ^
Elected were: 1849
Freeborn G. Jewett
, 1851
Alexander S. Johnson
, 1853
Charles H. Ruggles
, 1855
Samuel L. Selden
, 1857
Hiram Denio
, 1859
Henry E. Davies
, 1861
William B. Wright
, 1863
Henry R. Selden
, 1865
Ward Hunt
, 1867
Martin Grover
, 1869
John A. Lott
- ^
Appointed were: 1851
Samuel Alfred Foot
in place of
Greene C. Bronson
resigned, 1853
Hiram Denio
in place of
Freeborn G. Jewett
resigned, 1862
Henry R. Selden
in place of
Samuel L. Selden
resigned, 1865
John K. Porter
in place of
Henry R. Selden
resigned, 1868
Lewis B. Woodruff
in place of
John K. Porter
resigned, and
Charles Mason
in place of
William B. Wright
deceased
- ^
Elected were: 1853
Hiram Denio
for 4 years, 1855
George F. Comstock
for 6 years, 1865
John K. Porter
for 6 years, 1869
Robert Earl
for 2 years
- ^
"The special election"
(PDF)
.
New York Times
. May 17, 1870.
- ^
Elected were Democrats
William F. Allen
,
Charles A. Rapallo
,
Martin Grover
and
Rufus W. Peckham, Sr.
- ^
Elected were Republicans
Charles J. Folger
and
Charles Andrews
. Defeated were
Charles Mason
and
Robert S. Hale
.
- ^
A "designation" is an appointment that does not require confirmation by the State Senate.
- ^
"Commission of Appeals: Organization of the Second Division on the Court"
(PDF)
.
New York Times
. January 24, 1889.
- ^
"Court of Appeals Work: Probability that the Second Division will be Retained"
(PDF)
.
New York Times
. December 17, 1890.
- ^
"The Court of Appeals: The Commission wants the Second Division Abolished"
(PDF)
.
New York Times
. January 25, 1891.
- ^
"Legal History by Era"
. Historical Society of the New York Courts
. Retrieved
September 8,
2014
.
Further reading
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]
External links
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]
42°39′08″N
73°45′14″W
/
42.652319°N 73.753946°W
/
42.652319; -73.753946