Holtz v. State of New York

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Maxb49

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We have a court order against the State.

The case is Edward R. Holtz v. State of New York, et. al.

Mr. Holtz, a Class 3 firearms dealer and sole proprietor of Urban Armory in Sinclairville, New York has brought a Special Proceeding to enjoin the State of New York from enforcing the assault weapon sales/transfer ban on Heller, McDonald, and right to work grounds, including the landmark Slaughterhouse cases.

The case is before the Honorable Deborah Chimes in New York State Supreme Court, Chautauqua County. Judge Chimes issued an order requiring the State to demonstrate good cause why an injunction against the AWB should not be issued; otherwise, it will be issued on April 29th.
 
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I'm curious about how right-to-work and the Slaughterhouse cases fit together in this case. I'm looking forward to seeing it.
 
Don't get too excited. All you've got is an order requiring the State to appear. That is how such cases normally proceed. Now if you had a temporary restraning order, that would be something; that would require the court to find that you had a reasonable chance of prevailing.
 
Except now the burden of proof is on NY State to prove that the AWB and other provisions in the SAFE Act are Constitutional (good luck with that - can't put a round peg in a square hole).

The burden of proof is enormous as the State will have to come up with a pile of evidence to put a stop to the prelim. injunction. The injunction was ordered by a Supreme Court Justice -- the State has until April 29th to respond with proof for WHY the injunction should not be allowed to proceed. Temporary Restraining Orders (TRO's) are notoriously difficult to obtain and case law currently in place is prohibitive of a TRO in most every circumstance. The Supreme Court Justice (Deborah Chimes) could have very well refused to sign the order if the case did not have merit.
 
As a matter of law, temporary restraining orders cannot be granted against a State, body, or officer from carrying out Statutory law. You need a full injunction. This is the way it was in the CPLR, every judge's hands are tied regarding TROs. Nevertheless, the team applied for a TRO. The judge simply cannot grant the request. This isn't simply a lawsuit. The way the order is written places the burden on the State to demonstrate the Constitutionality of the law. That's a major shift from the Petitioner having to prove that the law is unconstitutional. Remember, the judge was not required to sign the order. Further, Mr. Holtz now has a court order. That's a big deal.

I think we crashed NYFirearms.com tonight.
 
http://www.wkbw.com/news/local/Second-Lawsuit-Filed-Against-NY-SAFE-Act-193688301.html

Here is an update from WKBW-TV, Channel 7 that adds some perspective to the lawsuit. If anyone is wondering why we have separate threads for the Holtz case and the Dywinski case, it has to do with the fact that these two cases raise separate and distinct issues. As such, according to the consensus of the legal team, it is unlikely that these cases can be consolidated into one case. So, properly, each post deserves it's own thread.
 
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New York's Trial Level Court

The injunction was ordered by a Supreme Court Justice -- the State has until April 29th to respond with proof for WHY the injunction should not be allowed to proceed.
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The New York Supreme Court is the trial level court. Even so, they are very far from being required to submit proof of anything. They are being called before the court to respond to a complaint. I would like to hear if the judge even has discretion to do less than that, as a complaint for anything typically requires a response if service has been provided to prevent some type of default judgment.

Hopefully this will establish some precedent for the other states
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This is just about as far from establishing precedent for New York as you can get, let alone other states.
 
MTGreen -- we're clear this court is the lowest level in NY state, but if the state doesn't appear, and this court's injunction therefore goes through, are you saying such an injunction will have no legal impact?
 
I do not presume to speak for MTGreen, but I think he's simply saying that it will have no precedential impact, not that it would have no legal impact. That's a horse of a different color.
 
Trial court Judgments

A trial courts judgment is only binding on the parties and is not binding upon any other court, although in rare areas of jurisprudence where a court of appeals simply has not spoken it could be cited with perhaps greater persuasive weight then a law review article.

This case is far from any final judgment. New York is being ordered to respond, and the burden of a response is the most preliminary component of a case against any defendant.

I wish Holtz well, but this case is just getting started.

With regard to if the state does not appear, it is unlikely, and such a case would have the least persuasive value of any trial court case.

With regard to the legal impact, I have tried a case in federal court where the defendant simply failed to appear until default judgment was filed. The defendant is simply increasing the cost on the plaintiff in hope that he will go away sooner rather than later. The judgment upon motion for default was simply an order to respond. That may be where we are in this case. I can tell you that nothing is easy legally, and this case has a long way to go.
 
Great News for NY!

I gladly moved from Buffalo to Texas, without any regrets, so I'm not too worried about my 2nd Amendment rights here, but I'm thrilled for the rest of you New Yorkers up there. If it passes, that's one small victory for NY citizens, but the biggest victory would be to replace the schmucks who pushed it through in the first place!
 
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Since the date was pushed from the 29th til today I'm anxiously awaiting an update. I would not be surprised if the state got an extension for up to 90 days.
 
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