Abekassis v. New York City, New York

Background

Ralph Abekassis applied in 2018 for a New York City premises handgun license, meaning a license to possess a handgun at a specific residence or business. The New York Police Department License Division denied the application based on two prior arrests, five criminal summonses, and his driving history. The record included 14 moving violations and nine driver’s-license suspensions, five of which involved unpaid fines. Abekassis stated that he had no criminal convictions and provided explanations for the arrests and driving history.

The License Division’s Appeals Unit affirmed the denial. It relied on three New York City licensing factors: arrests, indictments, or convictions; poor driving history or multiple license suspensions; and other information showing a lack of concern for personal or public safety. The Appeals Unit did not cite the separate factor concerning failure to pay legally required debts.

Abekassis sued New York City and three officials in their official capacities. He sought declaratory and injunctive relief, arguing that 38 Rules of the City of New York § 5-10(a), (h), (l), and (n) violated the Second Amendment both generally and as applied to him. He also argued that the city rules were preempted, meaning displaced or invalidated, by New York Penal Law § 400.00. Finally, he challenged state criminal provisions concerning possession of a firearm without a license.

Standing to Challenge Section 5-10(l)

The court dismissed Abekassis’s challenge to § 5-10(l) for lack of standing. Standing requires a plaintiff to show a concrete injury, a connection between that injury and the challenged conduct, and a likelihood that a favorable court decision would remedy the injury.

The court concluded that the License Division and Appeals Unit had not relied on § 5-10(l) when denying Abekassis’s application. Although the Appeals Unit mentioned suspensions caused by unpaid fines, it treated those suspensions as part of his overall driving history under § 5-10(h), not as proof that he had failed to pay legally required debts under § 5-10(l). Because the challenged provision was not a basis for the license denial, Abekassis could not show an injury traceable to that provision.

Second Amendment Framework

The court evaluated the challenges to § 5-10(a), (h), and (n) under the Second Circuit’s two-step framework for Second Amendment claims. First, a court asks whether the challenged rule affects conduct protected by the Second Amendment. Second, it selects the appropriate level of constitutional review based on how close the rule comes to the Amendment’s core and how seriously it burdens the right.

The court assumed, without conclusively deciding, that the challenged rules affected protected conduct. It applied intermediate scrutiny, a standard requiring a substantial relationship between the challenged rule and an important government interest. The court reasoned that the licensing scheme did not impose a categorical ban on handguns and was directed at evaluating whether individual applicants were law-abiding and responsible. It also noted that the rules allowed individualized decisions and did not require denial whenever one factor was present.

Facial Challenge

A facial challenge argues that a rule is invalid in all or nearly all circumstances. The court rejected Abekassis’s facial challenge to § 5-10 and to subsections (a), (h), and (n).

The court held that the licensing scheme was substantially related to the important government interests of public safety and crime prevention. It found that arrests and other violations could sometimes provide information about whether an applicant would comply with the law; driving violations and license suspensions could sometimes bear on responsible conduct; and the catch-all provision concerning lawfulness, candor, and safety could allow consideration of relevant information not covered by other factors.

The court emphasized that no single factor automatically required denial. The licensing official instead had to consider all relevant factors and make a discretionary, holistic decision. Because there were circumstances in which each challenged factor could support a license denial consistent with public safety, the court denied the facial challenge.

As-Applied Challenge

An as-applied challenge argues that a rule was unconstitutional in the way it was used against the particular plaintiff. The court described Abekassis’s challenge as a close question because he did not have a felony conviction, established mental-health or substance-abuse problems, or allegations of domestic violence, and some of the cited incidents appeared minor when considered individually.

The court nevertheless held that the licensing officials acted within constitutional bounds. It considered the combined history of Abekassis’s arrests, criminal summonses, moving violations, and license suspensions. Viewed as a whole, the court found that this history reasonably raised concerns about his willingness to comply with legal duties, his capacity for self-restraint, and his ability to possess a handgun safely and responsibly. The court therefore held that § 5-10 was constitutionally applied to Abekassis and denied his as-applied Second Amendment claim.

The court also denied Abekassis’s challenge to the state criminal provisions concerning unlicensed firearm possession because that challenge was derivative of his claim that he had been unlawfully denied a premises handgun license. Once the court rejected the facial and as-applied challenges to § 5-10, it rejected the related challenge to the criminal provisions as well.

State-Law Preemption Claim

Abekassis argued that § 5-10 was preempted by New York Penal Law § 400.00 because the city rules allegedly expanded the state law’s requirements concerning moral character and good cause. After dismissing all federal claims, the court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction, meaning authority to hear a related state-law claim, over the preemption issue.

The court found that the interaction between New York State’s licensing law and New York City’s rules presented a novel or complex issue of state law. It also concluded that convenience, fairness, and respect for state courts favored leaving that issue to state court. The court dismissed the preemption claim without prejudice to Abekassis’s ability to bring it in state court.

Disposition

Judge Paul A. Engelmayer granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss in full. He dismissed Abekassis’s federal claims with prejudice, dismissed the state-law preemption claim without prejudice to bringing it in state court, directed the clerk to terminate the pending motion, and closed the case.