Morrisania Community Corp. v. Tarr

329 F. Supp. 1261, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12116
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedAugust 9, 1971
DocketNo. 71 Civ. 2569
StatusPublished

This text of 329 F. Supp. 1261 (Morrisania Community Corp. v. Tarr) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Morrisania Community Corp. v. Tarr, 329 F. Supp. 1261, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12116 (S.D.N.Y. 1971).

Opinion

OPINION

FRANKEL, District Judge.

The chief and least bearable costs of war are paid in human lives. The young doctors who bring this suit, together with the communities they serve, present one aspect of that reckoning. It is claimed that plaintiff physicians and their “class,” unquestionably subject to statutory draft obligations, must be deferred because of assertedly gross flaws in the standards and procedures for allocating scarce medical personnel in places of civilian as against military need. A preliminary injunction is sought which would have the effect of blocking the draft of unwilling doctors and erasing even the allegedly inadequate procedures by which allocations are now made. The court concludes that threshold jurisdictional obstacles and the likelihood that plaintiffs will fail on the merits compel denial of their motion for a preliminary restraint.

I.

The original plaintiffs, offering themselves as representatives of two classes (draft-eligible physicians and the community in which they work), are two physicians, Dr. Marc Greenwald and Dr. Andrew Rosenblatt, two public service corporations concerned, inter alia, with health care and facilities in the Bronx, a State Senator, and the executive director of one of the plaintiff corporations. Defendants are Selective Service officials: the National Director, two local draft boards, the Medical Advisory Committee for New York City and the National Selective Service Medical Advisory Committee.1 Other physicians have been allowed to intervene since the suit began. However, most of them have actually been deferred or found unfit for military service in the weeks of the pendency of the case, and it appears now that only plaintiff Rosenblatt and two intervenors among those suing face probable induction. Deferments of the others have been granted on the advice of the Medical Advisory Committee, which is the main target of the action. While that bears upon the propriety of allowing this to proceed as a class suit, it is not vital for the other issues now to be considered. At the same time, to avoid superfluous detail, it will be sufficient to outline the pertinent facts in terms of Drs. Rosenblatt and Greenwald without the others.

Dr. Rosenblatt is 25 years old. He registered for the draft, as did other youths of his age, in 1964. He was thereafter deferred continuously as a student until June of 1970, allowing him to complete undergraduate and medical school. He proceeded then to serve as an intern in medicine at the Bronx Municipal Hospital Center from July 1, 1970, to June 30, 1971. On July 20, 1970, he was reclassified 1-A, available for military service. He was duly informed of, but chose not to exercise, his right of personal appearance before his Local Board or the State Appeal Board. He was examined and found fit for service [1263]*1263on September 24, 1970. On March 19, 1971, the Local Board mailed him an order to report for induction on July 1, 1971, a date that allowed for completion of his internship. There followed the efforts, detailed below, to obtain his deferment, culminating in the present lawsuit.

Plaintiff Greenwald is Rosenblatt’s contemporary and has. a. biography similar in respects pertinent here. As has been noted, however, despite his joinder here, he has lately been deferred following a finding of essentiality by the Medical Advisory Committee, which reached a different advisory opinion in the case of Rosenblatt.

To focus, then, on Rosenblatt, after the notice of March 19, ordering his induction on July 1, 1971, his Local Board received three letters from hospital officials and one from Congressman Badillo. These reported that J)r. Rosenblatt’s internship was scheduled to be followed by a residency beginning July 1, 1971. The letters urged a vital coim munity need for his continued services and said he would be difficult to replace because of a shortage of physicians in the Bronx. The Board postponed the induction pending receipt of a recommendation from the Medical Advisory Committee, the nature and functions of which are outlined below. Dr. Rosenblatt’s file was forwarded to that Committee through State Selective Service Headquarters. The New York City Medical Advisory Committee—or, more precisely, its Bronx subcommittee, consisting currently of one physician—concluded and advised on April 27, 1971, that Dr. Rosenblatt should not be considered so essential where he is as to warrant deferment. While that recommendation was not yet finally adopted by the Local Board when this suit was brought, the court treats Dr. Rosenblatt, seemingly alone among the physicians appearing as plaintiffs, as sufficiently aggrieved or threatened to be suing.2

Some brief description becomes appropriate—though we find remarkably little in plaintiffs’ papers—of the scheme for drafting and deferring doctors. We start, and may ultimately end, with undisputed statutory authority for such a draft. The starting-point is, of course, a universal obligation of males 18 to 26 years old to register for the draft, as Dr. Rosenblatt did when he was 18, 50 U.S.C.App. § 453. Omitting numerous details, we have, then, a system of deferments for those training for careers in medicine, balanced, as it were, by a Doctors Draft Act, 64 Stat. 826, which in its present form provides in pertinent part for draft liability of such men extending to age 35, 50 U.S.C.App. § 456(a) (1). Another significant factor in striking the balance is that the young man pursuing a career in medicine is not only deferred for his years of study, but is fairly well assured that his military duties will be in the area of his profession, unlike the situation of most other draftees. Orloff v. Willoughby, 345 U.S. 83, 73 S.Ct. 534, 97 L.Ed. 842 (1953). There is no statutory right of a man like Dr. Rosenblatt to be deferred because he is urgently wanted in some civilian post. In addition, there is no statutory right in any community or place to have such deferments, although the Executive, evidently responsive to Congressional pressure, 3 has acted to mitigate the most severe of local hardships.

Plaintiffs do refer to one subsection of the draft law as supportive of their position. This does not constitute a statutory ground for deferring any physician. But it is a statutory starting-place for discussion of the problems in the case. 50 U.S.C.App. § 454(j) provides for establishment by the President [1264]

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cain v. Commercial Publishing Co.
232 U.S. 124 (Supreme Court, 1914)
Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway Co. v. Polt
232 U.S. 165 (Supreme Court, 1914)
Ng Fung Ho v. White
259 U.S. 276 (Supreme Court, 1922)
Orloff v. Willoughby
345 U.S. 83 (Supreme Court, 1953)
United States Ex Rel. Toth v. Quarles
350 U.S. 11 (Supreme Court, 1955)
Hannah v. Larche
363 U.S. 420 (Supreme Court, 1960)
Breen v. Selective Service Local Board No. 16
396 U.S. 460 (Supreme Court, 1970)
Goldberg v. Kelly
397 U.S. 254 (Supreme Court, 1970)
Morico v. United States
399 U.S. 526 (Supreme Court, 1970)
Thomas Darrell Camp v. United States
413 F.2d 419 (Fifth Circuit, 1969)
United States v. William Philip Morico
415 F.2d 138 (Second Circuit, 1969)
Boyd v. Clark
393 U.S. 316 (Supreme Court, 1969)
Boyd v. Clark
287 F. Supp. 561 (S.D. New York, 1968)
Escalera v. New York City Housing Authority
425 F.2d 853 (Second Circuit, 1970)
Messinger v. United States
399 U.S. 927 (Supreme Court, 1970)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
329 F. Supp. 1261, 1971 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 12116, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/morrisania-community-corp-v-tarr-nysd-1971.