In re Application for a Retail Firearms Dealer’s License Renewal by Cayuse Corp. LLC, ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2016). This decision, issued by Judge Ostrer for the Appellate Division today, addresses the denial of a renewal of a retail firearms dealer’s license. The applicant (“Cayuse”) was seeking to renew a license that had been issued to Wild West City, a western-themed entertainment park, and to have the license transferred to Cayuse. The applicable statute, N.J.S.A. 2C:58-2, requires that applications for this type of license be made to and decided by a judge of the Superior Court.
Wild West City had been involved in a notorious 2006 incident in which a juvenile actor in one of the park’s skits shot and wounded another actor, using live ammunition when blanks were supposed to have been used. The principal of Cayuse, Michael Stabile, who filed the renewal application, had been indicted on numerous charges in connection with that incident. The entities that owned Wild West City and the land under it were also indicted. The prosecutor wrote a letter to the judge who was handling the dealer’s license renewal (the same judge who was handling the criminal matter) detailing those charges. The prosecutor sent a copy of that submission to counsel for the other indicted parties, but not to Stabile,who was acting for Cayuse.
The Law Division then held a hearing on Cayuse’s application in 2010. Stabile/Cayuse did not receive notice of the hearing and did not participate. There was no oral argument and no evidence presented at the hearing. Instead, the judge denied Cayuse’s application based on the prosecutor’s letter. The judge did state, however, that if Cayuse wanted to pursue the matter further, it was entitled to a de novo hearing before him. The judge cited In re Sportsman’s Rendezvous Retain Firearms Dealer’s License, 374 N.J. Super. 565 (App. Div. 2005) (Law Division judge summarily denied license application and same judge then held de novo hearing).
The State notified Stabile that Cayuse’s application had been denied and that he could request a de novo hearing. Stabile did so, twice, but got no response from the Law Division. Meanwhile, the license expired. Stabile then contacted the court and demanded an automatic approval because his timely request for a de novo hearing had not been honored. The Law Division then scheduled a hearing in 2012, of which Stabile was notified. Stabile decided, however, not to attend that hearing, but instead to pursue an appeal to the Appellate Division.
The hearing went ahead without Stabile. The Law Division rejected his demand for an automatic approval and found that it would be inappropriate to grant Cayuse’s application while criminal charges remained pending. The indictment against Stabile was later dismissed, though one of the other defendants entered (through Stabile) a conditional guilty plea to unlawful possession of a handgun.
In the Appellate Division, Judge Ostrer invoked the de novo standard of review, since only legal issues of the proper process under N.J.S.A. 2C:58-2 were involved. He “discern[ed] no basis in the statute or the Rules of Court for a court to decide a contested application ex parte, and then allow an unsuccessful applicant to seek de novo review by the same judge.”
In adopting N.J.S.A. 2C:58-2, the Legislature presumably intended that the court proceedings surrounding dealer’s license applications be comparable to those of other court proceedings, including notice, an opportunity to be heard, a hearing in open court, and a decision based only on competent evidence. None of those things happened here, where there was no notice to Stabile, the hearing proceeded ex parte, and the decision was based on “unproved allegations in an indictment.” Nor did an “appeal” to the same judge “cure these deficiencies.” Judge Ostrer stated that Sportsman’s adoption of such a procedure did not establish it as “the default mechanism for deciding applications under N.J.S.A. 2C:58-2.”
After discussing the burdens of proof and production on this type of application, and holding that the applicant has the burden of proving entitlement to a license but that the State has the burden of production as to any objection to the application, Judge Ostrer rejected Stabile’s demand for an automatic approval. There was nothing to establish that “the Legislature intended that a person who has not established his entitlement to a license should obtain one due to a procedural oversight.”
Finally, Judge Ostrer turned to next steps. Since not only had the license expired, but the three-year period that would have been covered by the renewal (had it been granted) had also elapsed, the application had become moot. But “the challenge to the denials is not moot.” Those denials might affect the applicant in a future license application. Accordingly, the denials would be vacated for failure to follow proper procedure, but there would be no remand. If the applicant made a new application, it was to occur in accordance with the procedure outlined by the panel.