## Facts

- NYSPHSAA is a statewide not-for-profit association that manages and enforces interscholastic athletic eligibility rules for member public, private, and charter high schools.
- Petitioners were nine NYSPHSAA member schools (private and charter) that agreed, as a condition of membership, to be bound by NYSPHSAA bylaws and eligibility standards.
- NYSPHSAA maintained Bylaw and Eligibility Standard Rule 29, a “transfer rule” generally making a student ineligible for one year in a sport if the student transferred schools without a corresponding change in parental (or qualifying custodian) residence, subject to enumerated exceptions and a one-time immediate-eligibility transfer within the district of residence.
- In October 2014, NYSPHSAA adopted revisions to Rule 29 that (1) tightened the residence requirement by requiring physical presence and intent to remain indefinitely, (2) limited a separated-parent exception to legally separated parents, and (3) eliminated an educational-waiver provision previously allowing eligibility based on academic offerings not available at the prior school.
- NYSPHSAA stated the revisions were intended to prevent athletics-driven transfers, including athletic recruitment and “district shopping,” and to curb use of nominal residence or claimed separations as pretexts.
- Petitioners commenced a CPLR article 78 proceeding seeking to annul Rule 29 and/or the 2014 revisions and to bar implementation; Supreme Court dismissed the petition, finding a rational basis for the rule and revisions.
- Petitioners appealed from the judgment dismissing the article 78 petition.

## Issues

1. Whether petitioners’ challenge to the underlying transfer rule (promulgated decades earlier) was barred by the article 78 statute of limitations.
2. Whether the 2014 revisions to Rule 29 were arbitrary and capricious or lacked a rational basis under article 78 review.
3. Whether NYSPHSAA abused its discretion in adopting and applying generally applicable transfer-eligibility standards that petitioners claimed disproportionately burdened private and charter schools.

## Decision

- The Appellate Division, Third Department affirmed the dismissal of the petition.
- The court held that the challenge to Rule 29 itself was time-barred under the article 78 limitations period.
- The court held that the 2014 revisions were not arbitrary or capricious and were supported by a rational basis tied to legitimate regulatory objectives.
- The court rejected the claim that disparate effects on private or charter schools, without more, established arbitrariness or abuse of discretion where the rules applied uniformly to all member schools.

## Legal Principles

- An article 78 challenge to a rule’s adoption must be brought within the limitations period running from the rule’s promulgation; later application does not restart the accrual period for attacking the rule itself.
- Under article 78, a rule will be sustained if it has any rational basis; courts do not substitute their policy judgments for the rulemaker’s.
- Membership-based athletic associations operating under education authorities and exercising delegated regulatory functions receive deference in setting eligibility standards for interscholastic competition.
- A generally applicable eligibility rule is not arbitrary solely because it incidentally affects certain categories of member schools more than others, where the rule serves legitimate objectives and applies equally to all members.

## Conclusion

The court upheld NYSPHSAA’s tightened transfer-eligibility standards, concluding that petitioners’ direct attack on the longstanding transfer rule was untimely and that the 2014 amendments rationally addressed perceived abuses related to athletics-motivated transfers, even if the changes made recruiting and enrollment strategies harder for some private and charter member schools.


Matter of The Albany Academies v. N.Y. State Pub. High Sch. Athletic Ass’n, 145 A.D.3d 4, 43 N.Y.S.3d 583 (3d Dep’t 2016)