NEW YORK FIRST AMENDMENT LANDSCAPE CHANGES IN SUMMER 2014

This Summer, the Court of Appeals (New York's highest court) issued two huge First Amendment decisions.  First was People v Golb, 2014 N.Y. LEXIS 1093 (May 13, 2014), which found the aggravated harassment statute unconstitutional. This was important because, read literally, the aggravated harassment statute made it a crime (and a family offense for which an order of protection could be issued) to make a phone call that "annoyed" someone. The courts had read implied requirements into the statute for years, but it was still such an easy standard to meet that it had been the "go to" crime for OP's in custody and visitation cases.  Want your spouse out of the house?  Just claim they yelled at you over the phone (which, let's face it, we've all done), and frequently a temporary OP would get issued.  This horrible practice would get the unwanted husband or wife out of the house and temporarily create a court Order that was illegal to violate, even if it was wrongly issued in the first place.

In Golb, the Court of Appeals fixed the problem, reiterating the long established principal that "any proscription of pure speech must be sharply limited to words which, by their utterance alone, inflict injury or tend naturally to evoke immediate violence."  The case also involves the Dead Sea scrolls, making it an interesting read.  What the Court does not mention, however, is that what helped create the problem - and let it remain for twenty years - was the Court's decision in People v. Shack , 86 N.Y.2d 539 (1995).  In Shack, the court upheld a portion of the aggravated harassment statute, in the context of a mentally ill man who made 185 unwanted phone calls to an estranged relative who was a therapist. The egregious conduct in that case causes an otherwise unduly vague statute to stand for another twenty years.

The second decision, possibly with further reaching implications, is People v Marquan M., 2014 N.Y. LEXIS 1527 (July 1, 2014).  With Golb, the aggravated harassment statute was like NewYork's dirty secret -- everyone knew it was unconstitutional.  Marquan, however, involved Albany's anti-cyberbullying law, which seemed to follow the Courts' prior guidance on what was required to get past First Amendment scrutiny. The law made the following a crime: 

Any act of communicating or causing a communication to be sent by mechanical or electronic means, including posting statements on the internet or through a computer or email network, disseminating embarrassing or sexually explicit photographs; disseminating private, personal, false or sexual information, or sending hate mail, with no legitimate private, personal, or public purpose, with the intent to harass, annoy, threaten, abuse, taunt, intimidate, torment, humiliate, or otherwise inflict significant emotional harm on another person

The statute is not a model of clarity. The words from "including" through "hate mail" are a non-exhaustive list of examples (ostensibly meaning that it really applies to "any act of communication"), and the list includes a single errant semicolon (probably added solely so that MS Word would stop saying it was a run on sentence).  Disregarding that list, the statute criminalizes:

A. "any act of communicating"
B. "with no legitimate private, personal, or public purpose"
C. "with intent to..."

What makes this decision interesting is the discussion of the no legitimate purpose language.  In the past, in Shack and other cases, this clause has routinely used to save criminal statutes from violating the First Amendment.  It creates a defense (or, more properly, an additional element to be proved), where the statute is not violated if there was a free speech protected purpose in the communication.  A legitimate purpose can be expressing opinion, or disagreement, or your own feelings. 

The trend had previously been in favor of finding statutes constitutional on their face and leaving them on the books, and then letting the lower courts interpret legitimate purpose language in each individual case (thereby leaving many, many, many cases subject to a motion to dismiss for an "as applied" constitutional challenge).  

Now, the Court of Appeals has apparently moved away from this preference for an as-applied approach, explaining that letting the "no legitimate purpose" clause save the statute effectively leaves the lower courts engaging in Constitutional analysis on a case-by-case basis and “begs the central question of what speech is ‘protected’ and what is not.”  

Injured Kids May Not Be Bound By Waivers

I have had many clients whose children were injured but who thought they could not sue because they had signed a waiver.  Fortunately, those clients thought to check with an attorney.  I can only imagine how many people have been dissuaded from filing a lawsuit, or contacting a lawyer, because they signed a waiver that would never hold up in court.

The truth is, when dealing with children, waivers are generally not enforceable.  A small child does not have the capacity to understand or waive their rights, and their parents cannot waive them on their behalf.  

This does not mean that every case is a winner.  Certain activities, particularly sports, carry with them an assumption of risk.  For example, generally, no one is liable when a teenager is hurt getting tackled in football because it is a risk of the activity, and no one was negligent.  

Other activities, particularly when marketed to young children, are not the same as organized sports among older children.  Facilities engaged in laser tag, ice skating, roller skating, trampoline and bounce parks, go carting, and other activities - even when they have you sign a waiver - owe a duty of reasonable care, including appropriate warnings, supervision, crowd control, and keeping their facilities safe. 

Don't assume that because you signed a waiver your child has no rights if they are injured. Call me for a free consultation, 631-482-9700, or email Skreppein@Qhmlaw.com.

 

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Municipal Litigation Attorney

Municipal litigation is a growing area of my practice.  I have substantial experience in the area, ranging from administrative hearings, to State court litigation, to Federal trials and appeals.

In addition to numerous run of the mill slip/trip and fall cases and "lights and sirens" motor vehicle cases, I have litigated a number of highly complex multi-million dollar liability cases dealing with the very limited exceptions to governmental immunity for discretionary judgments.  In one case, I had a client who was rendered a parapalegic in a shooting at a Bronx housing project while basic security measures (such as who would fix broken door locks) were tied up in red tape.  I have had two wrongful death cases related to negligent psych evaluations.  One where a mental patient was improperly released from State care and pushed someone onto the subsay tracks, and another where staffing changes led to a police officer having his firearm returned despite despite imminent threats to use it to kill himself.  I also litigated a case, and won a precedent-setting appeal, on the issue of the duty to report and respond to a third-party assault.

With employment, constitutional, and civil rights issues, I have argued a First Amendment case before the Second Circuit Court of Appes, and litigated multiple such cases before the Federal and State trial courts.  I have litigated several due process cases, including successfully bringing an Article 78 to have a volunteer EMS worksr reinstated to service, and litigating a pro bono appeal on the sufficiency of the hearings over red light camera tickets.  

As I'm writing this, I'm sitting in court waiting to be heard on a case where I am representing a town worker named in a sexual harassment suit, whom the Town is not defending due to a conflict.

I would prefer to have a steady practice representing municipalities, but I may also accept good Plaintiff's cases (assuming there's no conflict).  I have seen many attorneys who are eager to bring municipal claims on the idea that there are deep pockets, but I have a very different approach and perspective.  Municipal claims are difficult to win, and can be a waste of time and resources (mine, the client's, and the public's) if brought unnecessarily.  I have seen personal injury cases, for example, where the client recovered less and waited longer due to adding a poorly thought out municipal claim to an otherwise simple case.  I'm very selective about what plaintiffs' cases I take, but it is because I know the difference between a good case and a bad one.