Does the United States Supreme Court’s invalidation of New York’s “proper cause” requirement for obtaining a firearm license in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v Bruen render the entire firearm licensing regime unconstitutional? The Court of Appeals tackled that question recently in a criminal defandant’s challenge to his guilty plea to unlicensed possession of a firearm. Let’s take a look at that opinion and what else has been happening in New York’s appellate courts over the past week.
Court of Appeals
Government Employees Ins. Co. v Mayzenberg, 2025 NY Slip Op 06527 (Ct App Nov. 24, 2025)
Administrative Law, No Fault Insurance Regulations
Issue: May an insurer deny a no-fault benefits claim when it unilaterally determines that a properly-licensed provider has committed professional misconduct by accepting kickbacks for referrals?
Facts: New York’s no-fault insurance statute “requires that every insurance company provide policyholders who are injured in a motor vehicle accident, regardless of fault, with up to $50,000 in ‘first party benefits,’ including necessary healthcare expenses. Policyholders generally assign their claims for payment of no-fault benefits to their provider after receiving medical treatment, and the provider in turn seeks reimbursements from the insurer. An insurer must promptly pay no-fault benefits, but it may request from the provider ‘all items necessary to verify’ a claim. After an insurer receives proof of a claim, it must pay no-fault benefits or deny the claim within 30 days.”
To combat fraud in the no-fault system—in particular, fraud by “corrupt medical clinics that generated fraudulent bills based on feigned claims of automobile accident injuries”—the predecessor to the Department of Financial Services “promulgated the regulatory provision at issue here, 11 NYCRR 65-3.16 (a) (12), which states that ‘[a] provider of health care services is not eligible for reimbursement under the no-fault statute if the provider fails to meet any applicable New York State or local licensing requirement necessary to perform such service in New York or meet any applicable licensing requirement necessary to perform such service in any other state in which such service is performed.’”
GEICO commenced an action in federal court against a licensed acupuncturist, three of his entities, and two non-licensed individuals, seeking a declaration that GEICO did not have to pay their no fault claims because the defendants engaged in a kickback scheme where the acupuncturist paid the non-licensed individuals for patient referrals, which violated New York’s professional conduct standards. The District Court, on summary judgment, agreed with GEICO and held that it was not required to pay the defendants’ no fault benefit claims because the fraudulent kickback scheme rendered them ineligible under 11 NYCRR 65-3.16 (a) (12). The Second Circuit agreed that the fraudulent scheme occurred, but could not determine “whether that ethical violation renders Mingmen ineligible to receive payments for no-fault benefits” under the regulation, and so certified the question to the Court of Appeals.
Holding: The Court of Appeals held that DFS’ interpretation of the regulation—that an insurer may “deny a no-fault benefits claim only when a provider fails to fulfill a foundational licensing requirement necessary to perform healthcare services in any instance, and not when an insurer unilaterally determines that a properly-licensed provider has committed professional misconduct, short of effectively abdicating control to an unlicensed party”—was rational. The Court explained that the text of the regulation, which “states that a provider is ineligible for reimbursement if it ‘fails to meet any applicable . . . licensing requirement necessary’ to perform professional services (11 NYCRR 65-3.16 [a] [12]),” “renders ineligible providers who have not fulfilled the prerequisites to obtain a valid license, which legally prevents them from providing services. In contrast to providers who violate a foundational licensing requirement, those who commit professional misconduct do not necessarily lose their licenses. Under the Education Law, the Board of Regents is responsible for imposing penalties for professional misconduct, which include discipline short of license suspension, revocation, or annulment. Adhering to professional conduct standards therefore cannot be a ‘necessary’ licensing requirement for the purposes of the regulation.”
Further, the Court held, “DFS’s interpretation ensures the primacy and integrity of the Board of Regents’s regulatory oversight [of professional misconduct]. Allowing insurers to deny no-fault benefits reimbursements based on their unilateral determination that a provider has engaged in professional misconduct would displace the Board of Regents as the principal enforcer of professional discipline, undermining this carefully constructed statutory regime.”
The Court also reasoned that “DFS’s interpretation of the regulation furthers the no-fault statute’s goals of ensuring prompt payments to accident victims and reducing litigation. If the regulation encompassed professional misconduct, then an insurer could, as GEICO did here, deny reimbursement of no-fault benefits claims based on unproven allegations of such misconduct, even if those allegations may never result in the provider losing their license. GEICO’s proposed interpretation would have the perverse effect of delaying payments and incentivizing litigation, based on an insurer’s unilateral determination that a provider violated any one of the fifty distinct categories of professional misconduct in Education Law § 6530, including relatively minor departures from professional standards. That outcome is contrary to the Court’s admonishment that mere technical violations of licensing laws are insufficient to justify an insurer’s delay in payment of claims.”
Finally, the Court noted, an insurer in this situation is “not without recourse if they conclude that a provider has fraudulently billed for unnecessary or nonexistent services, or has allowed nonphysicians to control a professional services corporation. Indeed, an insurer may deny a claim for reimbursement on the ground that the medical expenses were not necessary . . . Even where the provider renders medically necessary services, an insurer can seek damages or assert a claim for unjust enrichment . . . [or] argu[e] that a provider’s misconduct effectively ceded control of their professional services corporation to unlicensed individuals,” under the Court’s prior precedent allowing no-fault benefit denials in such instances.
People v Johnson, 2025 NY Slip Op 06528 (Ct App Nov. 24, 2025)
Criminal Law, Appeal Waiver, Facial Constitutional Challenge
Issue: Did the defendant’s facial constitutional challenge to New York’s entire firearm licensing regime based on the Supreme Court’s opinion in New York State Rifle & Pistol Assn., Inc. v Bruen survive the appeal waiver that was part of his guilty plea?
Facts: When police were called to defendant’s home for a report of a domestic incident, they discovered a loaded 9-millimeter pistol in defendant’s moped. Because defendant did not have a license for the firearm, police arrested him and he was indicted for unlicensed possession, shortly after the Supreme Court struck down New York’s proper cause licensing requirement as violative of the Second Amendment. “The defendant moved to dismiss the indictment. Rather than attacking any specific provisions of the licensing scheme, he argued broadly that Bruen effectively struck down New York’s public carry licensing system by invalidating the ‘proper cause’ requirement. The defendant further contended that because the charges against him rested solely on the basis that he did not obtain a license to carry a firearm, the indictment could not stand.”
Supreme Court denied the motion, holding that defendant lacked standing because he never applied for a licensed and failed to demonstrate it would have been futile to do so, and that his facial constitutional challenge failed on the merits in any event, because the Supreme Court only struck the “proper cause” requirement, not New York’s entire licensing scheme. Defendant thereafter accepted a plea and waived his right to appeal.
“On appeal, the defendant renewed his argument that Bruen invalidated the state’s entire firearm licensing scheme, notwithstanding his waiver. He argued that a Bruen claim cannot be waived because it relates to a right of constitutional dimension going to the very heart of the process.” The Appellate Division, Fourth Department affirmed his conviction, holding that the appeal waiver barred his constitutional challenge. Even if it hadn’t, the Court explained, defendant lacked standing and his Bruen challenge lacked merit.
Holding: The Court of Appeals held that “a facial constitutional challenge such as the one presented here likewise falls into the narrow class of non-waivable appellate claims. Hornbook law underscores the very high bar for this type of challenge: a litigant must contend that in any degree and in every conceivable application, the law suffers wholesale constitutional impairment. In the rare circumstances where a facial challenge is successful, the law is invalid in toto—and therefore incapable of any valid application, and thus the State will lack authority to prosecute or punish the defendant or anyone else for the conduct at issue. In that key respect, a facial challenge goes squarely to the fairness in the process itself, and transcends an individual defendant’s concerns to implicate a larger societal interest in its correct resolution. Accordingly, a waiver that precludes appellate review of a facial constitutional challenge to a criminal statute should not be enforced.” The Court noted, however, “that the class of claims excepted from the general rule enforcing appeal waivers remains narrow. There will be few types of claims that transcend a defendant’s individual interests and implicate a larger societal value to such an extent that they cannot be waived, and appeal waivers otherwise should be enforced.”
The Court then held that the defendant had standing to bring the constitutional challenge even though he had never applied for a firearm license because he suffered a concrete injury—he was prosecuted for possessing an unlicensed firearm, thus giving him an actual stake in the Second Amendment challenge—and that injury fell within the zone of interest because the Penal Law only prohibits unlicensed possession of a firearm. Indeed, the Court explained, “a defendant need not comply with what he alleges is an unconstitutional licensing scheme to challenge a criminal conviction.”
The Court held, however, that the defendant’s Bruen claim failed on its merits. Answering the limited question whether “Bruen’s invalidation of the ‘proper cause’ requirement rendered New York’s entire firearm licensing scheme facially unconstitutional,” the Court explained that it did not. “Bruen presented a challenge to one discrete aspect of New York’s firearm licensing scheme: the ‘proper cause’ requirement. The Court’s analysis and holding was confined to that provision and did not address any other aspect of New York’s licensing scheme. To the contrary, Bruen instructed that states are not prohibited from imposing licensing requirements on persons who wish to carry a gun for self-defense.” The Court concluded that the invalid “proper cause” requirement was severable from the remainder of New York’s licensing regime. “The text and structure of the licensing scheme evince a clear legislative intent to regulate the lawful purchase, possession, and use of firearms. The licensing scheme is detailed and multi-faceted; the ‘proper cause’ provision was just one aspect of a much broader scheme that includes a variety of distinct requirements . . . We find it implausible that the Legislature would have intended for all of these other provisions to be invalidated simply because the ‘proper cause’ requirement was deemed unenforceable.” Because the proper cause was severable from the remainder of the licensing regime, the Court held, its invalidation in Bruen did not render the remainder of the licensing regime facially invalid. Accordingly, defendant’s facial constitutional challenge failed because he “failed to show that there is no set of circumstances in which the licensing scheme would be constitutionally valid.”
New York Appeals 