Opinion
06 Civ. 3335 (KMW).
March 9, 2007
OPINION AND ORDER
Pro se Plaintiff Terenzio al-Cantara filed suit alleging that Defendant New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal ("DHCR") violated the United States and New York Constitutions by granting multiple extensions of time to his opponent in an administrative proceeding. DHCR moved to dismiss the Complaint, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction based on sovereign immunity. Plaintiff conceded that DHCR was not a permissible defendant and moved to amend the Complaint by substituting as defendants three individual officers of DHCR, Sekhar Unnithan and John Does 1 and 2.
In his Reply Memorandum, Plaintiff identified Doe 1 as Jadwiga Krawczyk and Doe 2 as Rohan James.
By report and recommendation dated August 30, 2006 (the "Report"), Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV recommended that DHCR's motion to be dismiss be granted and Plaintiff's motion to amend be denied. For the reasons stated below, the Court agrees with the Report, and the Complaint is dismissed without leave to amend.
BACKGROUND
The following facts, drawn from the Complaint, are assumed to be true for purposes of this motion to dismiss. The Report, familiarity with which is assumed, contains a more complete description of the factual background.
From September 15, 2003 to June 15, 2005, Plaintiff sublet a Manhattan apartment from Nicole Tausend. (Compl. ¶ 4.) On November 16, 2005, he filed an overcharge complaint against Tausend with DHCR, alleging that Tausend paid only $813.43 per month in rent but charged Plaintiff $2,100.00 per month. (Id. ¶ 3). Tausend was entitled by regulation to no fewer than twenty days to respond to Plaintiff's complaint. See N.Y. Comp. Codes R. Regs. tit. 9, § 2527.4 (2007). On December 28, 2005, she sought and received a thirty-day extension of time to answer because she was working in Italy. (Compl. ¶ 6, see also id. Ex. A.) Tausend sought a second extension on January 31, 2006 (id. Ex. A), and she requested a stay of the proceedings on February 28, 2006, pending the resolution of an unrelated dispute with Plaintiff (id.). On April 26, 2006, DHCR granted Tausend an extension until May 17, 2006, but specified that no additional extensions would be approved. (Id.) Plaintiff filed suit against DHCR in this Court on May 2, 2006, alleging that its officers' repeated extensions of Tausend's time to answer violated Plaintiff's constitutional rights.
The dispute, a holdover action by Tausend against Plaintiff in New York City Housing Court, was filed in August 2005 and dismissed by order dated March 29, 2006. (Compl. ¶¶ 4, 17.) The details of the holdover action are not relevant here.
DISCUSSION I. Standard of Review
The Court should grant DHCR's motion to dismiss only if "it appears beyond doubt, even when the complaint is liberally construed, that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts which would entitle him to relief." United States v. Baylor Univ. Med. Ctr., 469 F.3d 263, 267 (2d Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court must accept as true all facts alleged in the Complaint and draw any inferences in the light most favorable to Plaintiff. Id. Because Plaintiff is proceeding pro se, the Court must construe his submissions liberally and interpret them as raising the strongest possible arguments. Triestman v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 470 F.3d 471, 474 (2d Cir. 2006).
The Court should give Plaintiff leave to amend the Complaint when justice so requires. Fed.R.Civ.P. 15(a). However, "where amendment would be futile, denial of leave to amend is proper."Joblove v. Barr Labs. Inc. (In re Tamoxifen Citrate Antitrust Litig.), 466 F.3d 187, 220 (2d Cir. 2006). An amendment should be denied as futile if the proposed claim could not withstand a motion to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Dougherty v. Town of N. Hempstead Bd. of Zoning Appeals, 282 F.3d 83, 88 (2d Cir. 2002).
Magistrate Judge Francis recommended that the Complaint be dismissed and leave to amend denied as futile. Plaintiff objects to these recommendations with respect to his due process and equal protection claims. Where a party objects in writing to a portion of the report and recommendation of a magistrate judge, the district court must review that portion of the report de novo. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1).
II. Due Process Claim
Plaintiff alleges that Defendant deprived him of property without due process of law, in violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, by granting Tausend several extensions of time in which to answer his administrative complaint. Plaintiff's proposed Amended Complaint substitutes individual named officers of DHCR in place of Defendant. The Report recommended that this claim be dismissed and that leave to amend be denied, a recommendation to which Plaintiff objects.
As Magistrate Judge Francis correctly explained, Plaintiff's right to relief has been delayed but not extinguished, and he does not allege that the acts of DHCR or its officers have caused him any prejudice other than delay. There is therefore no "risk of an erroneous deprivation of [Plaintiff's] interest through the procedures used" by DHCR. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976). Accordingly, Plaintiff has not been deprived of due process. See N.Y. State Nat'l Org. for Women v. Pataki, 261 F.3d 156, 168-69 (2d Cir. 2001) (performing similar analysis). Because this is true whether Plaintiff's suit is directed against DHCR or against its officers, Plaintiff's proposed amendment is futile.
Plaintiff argues that Defendant's actions are akin to those of "a trial judge [who] continuously ignores fundamental rules which are guaranteed by both the State and Federal Constitutions." (Pl.'s Reply Mem. in Opp'n to Report 2.) But, to extend the analogy, a reviewing court may not reverse a trial judge if the judge's errors were harmless. See United States v. Carson, 52 F.3d 1173, 1188 (2d Cir. 1995) ("[M]inor trial errors only require a reversal if the litigant can establish that he has been prejudiced; litigants are entitled to a fair, as opposed to a perfect trial." (internal quotation marks omitted)).
III. Equal Protection Claim
Plaintiff also alleges that DHCR and/or its officers discriminated against him on the basis of economic class, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Article I, Section 11 of the New York Constitution. Specifically, he claims that DHCR and its officers "benefited a member of the landlord class over petitioner, a member of the tenant class." (Pl.'s Reply Mem. 2-3.) The Report recommended that this claim be dismissed and leave to amend denied. Because the classification "tenant" is not a suspect classification under the U.S. Constitution, DHCR need show only that the challenged government action "bears a rational relation to some legitimate end." Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620, 631 (1996). Magistrate Judge Francis concluded that the discretion afforded DHCR to grant landlords (or tenants) extra time to respond in the state administrative code, see N.Y. Comp. Codes R. Regs. tit. 9, § 2527.5(d) (2007), is sensible and rational.
The Court takes the Complaint's reference to "Section 11 of the New York State Constitution" (Compl. ¶ 1) to mean Article I, Section 11.
The Report does not separately analyze Plaintiff's state constitutional claims, but "the breadth of coverage under the equal protection clauses of the federal and [New York] constitutions is equal." Pinnacle Nursing Home v. Axelrod, 928 F.2d 1306, 1317 (2d Cir. 1991).
Plaintiff objects. He argues that he was deprived of equal protection of the laws not as a member of a class but as an individual. A "class of one" may state an equal protection claim "where the plaintiff alleges that she has been intentionally treated differently from others similarly situated and that there is no rational basis for the difference in treatment." Vill. of Willowbrook v. Olech, 528 U.S. 562, 564 (2000). Here, however, Plaintiff does not allege that he was treated differently either from other tenants pursuing complaints against their landlords or from his landlord, Tausend; there is no allegation, for instance, that Plaintiff requested additional time to file papers and that his request was denied. Furthermore, he has not explained why the grant of discretion to DHCR to allow extensions of time is not rational. Plaintiff's proposed amendment does not alter this conclusion.
CONCLUSION
Defendant's motion to dismiss is GRANTED, and Plaintiff's motion for leave to amend the Complaint is DENIED. The Clerk of Court is hereby directed to close this case.
SO ORDERED.