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Enforcement – Agriculture and Markets Law

Jurnove v. Lawrence, 38 A.D.3d 895, 832 N.Y.S.2d 655, 2007 N.Y. Slip Op. 02757 (2 Dept., 2007)

In a CPLR Article 78 in the nature of mandamus to compel Respondents to comply with Agriculture and Markets Law §371, the Supreme Court granted Respondents’ motion to dismiss and Petitioners appealed.  The Appellate Division reversed and reinstated the petition and remanded the case back to the Supreme Court for further proceedings.

A mandamus action is an appropriate vehicle to compel acts that officials are duty-bound to perform, regardless on whether they may exercise their discretion in doing so.  Mandamus will lie if they have abdicated their responsibilities by failing to discharge them, regardless of motive.  Here the Respondents had a duty to enforce Article 26 of the Agriculture and Markets Law.  In addition, Respondents’ initially said that they had a broad policy to refer all such violations o the Nassau County SPCA, then later denied the policy, and the County also failed to address Petitioners’ allegations of specific instances where county police refused to accept Petitioners’ complaints – these all raised a question of fact as to whether Respondents abdicated their statutorily-imposed duty. 

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