## Facts

- New York’s Wicks Law requires separate specifications (and awards) for major public construction trades (generally plumbing, electrical, and HVAC) above a statutory cost threshold.
- In 2008, the Legislature amended the Wicks Law by replacing the prior uniform $50,000 threshold with nonuniform thresholds by county: $3 million in New York City, $1.5 million in Nassau/Suffolk/Westchester, and $500,000 elsewhere.
- The amendments also included provisions related to project labor agreements and apprenticeship requirements for certain covered projects.
- A trade association of primarily nonunion contractors and related plaintiffs sued state officials, asserting multiple constitutional and statutory claims.
- The principal claim on appeal challenged the nonuniform county thresholds as an unconstitutional “special law” under the New York Constitution’s Home Rule provision because the Legislature did not obtain local home-rule messages.
- Plaintiffs also raised federal constitutional challenges to the apprenticeship and related provisions, alleging discriminatory effects on out-of-state and nonunion contractors and certain disadvantaged firms.
- The trial court dismissed all claims; the intermediate appellate court concluded plaintiffs had standing on the Home Rule claim but rejected it on the merits and otherwise largely affirmed dismissal.
- The state’s highest court reviewed the Home Rule merits question and certain standing/ripeness issues for the federal constitutional claims.

## Issues

1. Whether a statute with statewide impact addressing a substantial state concern, but drawing geographic distinctions, triggers Home Rule “special law” limits or requires judicial review of the reasonableness of the geographic classifications.
2. Whether plaintiffs had standing and ripe claims to challenge apprenticeship and related provisions on federal constitutional grounds absent concrete, imminent injury.

## Decision

- The court held the 2008 amendments addressed a substantial state concern and operated as a law of statewide impact governing public construction contracting and expenditure of public funds.
- The Home Rule Clause did not require courts to examine the reasonableness of the Legislature’s geographic distinctions once the statute qualified as a statewide law on a substantial state concern.
- The nonuniform thresholds therefore did not violate the Home Rule provision.
- The court concluded certain federal constitutional challenges were properly dismissed for lack of standing or ripeness because alleged injuries were speculative and contingent on future project conditions.
- The judgment was modified and, as modified, affirmed, leaving the amendments largely intact.

## Legal Principles

- When the Legislature enacts a law of statewide impact addressing a substantial state concern, the Home Rule provision does not require judicial inquiry into the reasonableness of geographic distinctions within the statute.
- Home Rule constraints principally target laws regulating the “property, affairs or government” of localities; statewide regulation of substantial state concerns is not invalid merely because it is nonuniform across regions.
- Courts do not treat Article IX as authorization to invalidate statewide economic or geographic line-drawing based on a freestanding “reasonableness” test.
- Standing and ripeness require a concrete, non-speculative injury; challenges to contingent statutory effects may be dismissed without reaching substantive constitutional merits.

## Conclusion

The court upheld the amended, nonuniform Wicks Law thresholds, ruling that Home Rule does not mandate reasonableness review of geographic distinctions in a statewide law addressing substantial state concerns, and it dismissed several federal constitutional challenges for lack of justiciable injury.


Empire State Chapter of Associated Builders & Contractors, Inc. v. Smith, 21 N.Y.3d 309, 992 N.E.2d 1067 (2013)