96 South Broadway
In a Decision and Order issued December 2, 2020, the New York State Appellate Division, Second Department, vacated a judgment against the Village of Chester and dismissed all state claims filed by BT Holdings. This Order comes after the S.D.N.Y. and Second Circuit previously dismissed Plaintiff’s takings claim and remanded the balance of the case to State Court. See BT Holdings, LLC v. Vil. Of Chester, 670 Fed Appx 17 [2d Cir 2016]. BT Holdings has now lost all claims against the Village in both State and Federal Courts. The case was a complete victory for the Village of Chester, New York on all allegations.
In summary, BT Holdings had alleged that the Village breached two stipulations settling a prior annexation proceeding by failing to enact zoning for Plaintiff’s property that would allow construction of the project as described in the SEQRA annexation documents. The Appellate Division ruled that the stipulations did not contain the terms alleged to have been breached, and that even if the stipulations did contain the alleged terms, they would be enforceable because a legislative act cannot be agreed to by stipulation or violate the term limits rule. This is the very argument raised consistently by the Village of Chester’s Litigation Counsel, Donald J. Feerick, Jr., Mary E. Brady Marzolla, and Patrick A. Knowles, of Feerick Nugent MacCartney, PLLC, South Nyack, N.Y.
The decision is available at BT Holdings, LLC v. Vill. of Chester, No. 1480/15, 2020 WL 7050587 (N.Y. App. Div. Dec. 2, 2020).