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55 Smith Avenue Mount Kisco, NY 10549 p: 914.666.5600 f: 914.666.6267 Attorney Advertising	Recent Cases July 2010 — The firm perfected an appeal in the Appellate Division, Second Department on behalf of a property owner in controversial land use litigation in a southern Westchester community. July 2010 — The firm won a favorable decision from the Supreme Court, Westchester County, upholding the authority of our client, the Office of the Inspector General of a southern Westchester City, to investigate the City Board of Education in all matters not strictly educational or pedagogic, and directing compliance with the subpoena issued by our client. July 2010 — The firm successfully resolved wetlands and other municipal environmental violations on behalf of a client in a northern Westchester community. June 2010 — The firm obtained Planning Board/Architectural Review Board approval for 6-unit affordable housing proposal in northern Westchester community. May 2010 — The firm obtained variances and site plan approval for expansion of pharmacy in southern Westchester community. April 2010 — The firm obtained approval for new retail business in southern Westchester community. April 2010 — The firm obtained waiver of site plan approval and special permit for private school for library expansion in northern Westchester. March 2010 — The firm obtained approval of residential subdivision in northern Westchester community. March 2010 — The firm completed sale of $9.8 MM estate in a northern Westchester community. March 2010 — The firm obtained approvals from Zoning and Planning Board approvals for the establishment of an optician’s business in southern Westchester community. March 2010 — The firm obtained affirmative of Appellate Division, Second Department in restrictive covenant litigation against southern Westchester community. March 2010 — The firm filed an appeal on behalf of southern Westchester developer in complex vested rights case. January 2010 — This firm won a favorable decision from the Justice Court of a Putnam community, which dismissed eight separate violations issued by another Putnam community against our client related to the legality of his use of his property. December 2009 — The firm settled a long-standing litigated dispute over deeded easement rights and other property interests involving neighboring properties and a homeowners association, after having received a favorable decision from the Appellate Division Second Department earlier in 2009. December 2009 — The firm won a favorable decision from the Appellate Division Second Department affirming the Supreme Court grant of summary judgment in favor of our client involving a dispute over express and prescriptive easement rights in a lake community in Northern Westchester. December 2009 — The firm represented the purchaser of a substantial residential property in Putnam County on which title closed on December 30, 2009. December 2009 — The firm represented the seller of several residential properties in Northern Westchester, which involved the resolution of environmental and development issues. December 2009 — The firm achieved the resolution of contested tax exemptions and won tax refunds for a religious institution for its property in Central Westchester. December 2009 — The firm won area variance and a special permit approvals from a zoning board of appeals in Northern Westchester for the expansion of its religious institution client, a matter that had been vigorously contested by neighbors. December 2009 — The firm won site plan and special permit approvals from the planning board and zoning board of appeals in Northern Westchester for the operation of a day camp for its private school client. December 2009 — The firm won the two-year extension of a special permit from a zoning board of appeals in Northern Westchester for temporary employee parking at a church property for its hospital client. December 2009 — The firm settled litigation involving a commercial marina lease. December 2009 — The firm closed the sale of an insurance agency business. December 2009 — The firm filed a petition for a rezoning in a Southern Westchester village to permit a residential/office condominium development on the site of existing service stations. December 2009 — The firm commenced an Article 78 proceeding against a Southern Westchester community to challenge the denial of an extension of site plan/special permit and architectural approvals pending litigation by neighbors against the community challenging those approvals. November 2009 — The firm reached a favorable settlement in a heavily-litigated zoning dispute on behalf of a Dutchess County client involved in the carting of construction and demolition materials and the sale of fuel oil. September 2009 — The firm won a favorable Appellate Division, Second Department decision for $500,000 for a client, a publicly traded corporation with regard to a personal guarantee of a corporate lease agreement. July 2009 — The firm won amended site plan approval for an auto storage facility in a Northern Westchester community, over objection from a neighboring property owner. July 2009 — The firm won a favorable decision from the Appellate Division, Second Department in an Article 78 proceeding in which the Court held that a shopping center in New Rochelle is a legally conforming use and does not need to obtain a use variance in order to expand. June 2009 — The firm won full real property tax exemptions for a religious corporation whose properties in a central Westchester County town have been the subject of real property tax exemption litigation for over 10 years. The firm also won a complete exemption for a cultural arts not-for-profit client in Northern Westchester which had not previously obtained full tax exemption status for its property. June 2009 — For the second time in four years, the firm successfully convinced a Northern Westchester town on behalf of the owners of nearly one-third of the properties which would have been affected, not to upzone one of that town’s hamlets so as to remove commercial and industrial uses from that hamlet and substitute residential uses in their place. The upzoning initiative was brought about by two controversial special use permit applications pending before the town which caused the neighboring property owners to seek to turn the clock back four years and ask the town to upzone the hamlet which the town had decided not to do four years earlier. The property owners to be affected by the upzoning and one of the special use permit applicants were represented by the firm. June 2009 — The firm secured all agency approvals for a lake front residential subdivision in a Southern Westchester community. June 2009 — The firm settled a long-standing shareholder’s dispute after many years of negotiations with complex shareholder’s agreement regarding the ownership and management of a sewage treatment plant in a Northern Westchester community. March 2009 — The firm obtained approvals for mixed use self-storage and car restoration project on industrial site in a Northern Westchester community. March 2009 — The firm represented the property owner in the sale and donation of approximately 80-acre tract in Northern Westchester and Southern Putnam Counties to the State of New York for park purposes after having secured subdivision approval in towns located in both Westchester and Putnam counties and having successfully defending that approval against a neighbor’s Article 78 proceeding in Supreme Court and the Appellate Division, Second Department. March 2009 — The firm closed the sale of a controversial tract of real property in a town in Putnam County after having obtained subdivision approval for a 36-lot subdivision and having successfully defended that approval against a neighbor’s Article 78 proceeding. March 2009 — The firm secured a loan workout/forbearance agreement upon initiating default/mortgage foreclosure proceedings with respect to a parcel in a Northern Westchester community. March 2009 — The firm secured a license agreement with a town in Rockland County to permit the reopening of the DEC investigation into encroachment of a municipal landfill on private property. March 25, 2009 — The firm obtained a favorable determination after a 2-day bench trial in Supreme Court, Westchester County on behalf of our client, a religious, not-for-profit corporation, in which the Court held that our client is entitled to tax-exempt status and a refund of all taxes paid, plus interest, for its office building for the years 1999-2006 which is leased to related, religious not-for-profit corporations. The Town has filed a Notice of Appeal to the Appellate Division Second Department. February 17, 2009 — The firm obtained an affirmance from the Appellate Division Second Department of an Order of the Supreme Court Westchester County which dismissed an Article 78 proceeding commenced by a neighbor to our client’s commercial property in a Northern Westchester town, in which the neighbor had challenged a finding by the ZBA that our client’s commercial parking lot constituted a protected pre-existing non-conforming use. February 2009 — The firm reached a favorable settlement in an Article 78 proceeding it commenced against a municipality after an adverse ZBA decision. The settlement resulted in an amendment of the municipality’s zoning ordinance to remove a provision upon which the municipality had relied in the ZBA proceeding to prohibit a national chain from taking over a former retail/food site. February 2009 — The firm obtained an award of legal fees against an adverse party for a municipal client in litigation over property in its downtown waterfront development district January 27, 2009 — Clients of the firm, homeowners in a community in Northern Westchester, were served by their former architect with a demand for arbitration as a result of a dispute arising out of the design and management of construction of our clients’ new home. The firm commenced a proceeding in which it sought a stay of the arbitration proceeding based upon the General Business Law and recent Appellate Division, Second Department case law. The Supreme Court, Westchester County stayed the arbitration proceeding. January 20, 2009 — The firm obtained an affirmance from the Appellate Division Second Department of an Order of the Supreme Court Westchester County which held that the firm’s client, a property owner in Northern Westchester, has standing to seek a permanent injunction against a neighbor who constructed massive stone pillars and other obstructions in an access easement area, and to seek counsel fees incurred in the litigation. January 2009 — The firm represented our client, a landlord, in opposing the removal by a tenant of a landlord/tenant holdover proceeding from State Court to Federal Court alleging constitutional violations, including retaliatory eviction. The firm moved to remand this proceeding back to State Court as there was no proper basis for removal, and the U.S. District Court, Southern District agreed and granted our motion. January 2009 — The firm represented the plaintiff in a declaratory judgment action against an insurance company seeking to indemnify our client from losses suffered to its commercial buildings as a result of rocks toppling on to and destroying the client’s building. The insurance company moved for summary judgment claiming that the earth movement exclusion of the insurance policy clearly and unambiguously applied to our client’s loss. The Westchester Supreme Court denied the insurance company’s motion and found that, as there were triable issues of fact, summary judgment in favor of the insurance company was inappropriate. November 5, 2008 — The firm had been engaged as appellate counsel to appeal an adverse ruling by the Supreme Court Westchester County in a matter in which a group of condominiums brought an action against the entities that had constructed and maintained the street and path lighting system in the development, seeking damages and abatement of the dangerous conditions. The Appellate Division Second Department upheld the Supreme Court order and the case was subsequently settled. September 11, 2008 — Our client, a homeowner in a lakeside community, was the defendant in a lawsuit initiated by a group of her neighbors who alleged express and/or prescriptive easement rights to enter and cross her land via a so-called “path.” The neighbors claimed that this “path” had existed for decades, ran underneath our client’s deck within a few feet of a bedroom window, and across her entire property. Following completion of discovery, the neighbors moved for partial summary judgment and we cross-moved for partial summary judgment on behalf of our client. In an Order filed and entered September 11, 2008 (Index No.: 21451/05), the Hon. W. Denis Donovan held that, except for a limited expressly granted right to access a spring on a portion of our client’s land, the neighbors did not have any express or prescriptive easement rights over her property. The Court dismissed all other claims and counterclaims in the action. The neighbors have initiated an appeal but have not yet perfected that appeal. June 30, 2008 — Our client, the owner of a nearly completed and otherwise legally compliant shopping center on Route 22 in the Town of Pawling was denied a building permit to partition that shopping center into stores with less than 3,500 square feet gross floor area per store. The denial was based on a Town Zoning Code section that required that each store, office, or service establishment within a shopping center in the subject zoning district to have a minimum gross floor area of 3,500 square feet. The stated legislative purpose of this restriction was to encourage smaller stores and professional offices to locate in the older, denser Village of Pawling, by prohibiting smaller stores in the outskirts of Town of Pawling. Our client applied for a zone change, upon which the Town did not act, and for an area variance from this requirement, which the Zoning Board denied. Our client commenced a combined declaratory judgment action/Article 78 special proceeding seeking to invalidate the Zoning Code section as an ultra vires and unconstitutional regulation that, among other things, improperly regulated business competition instead of land use, and failed to advance any legitimate governmental purpose. In the alternative, our client sought to annul, reverse, and set aside the decision of the Zoning Board and direct the Board to grant the requested variance. In a Decision and Order filed and entered June 30, 2008 (Putnam County Index No. 792/2008), the Hon. Andrew P. O’Rourke held that the Zoning Code requirement was discriminatory and unconstitutional because it improperly prejudiced businesses in the wider Town of Pawling in favor of businesses located in the Village of Pawling. Since the underlying Zoning Code section was found to be invalid, the Zoning Board’s denial of an area variance from that section became moot.
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