New York State Bar Association
Nassau county Bar Association
New York
United States District Courts for the Southern, Eastern, and Northern Districts of New York
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit
United States Supreme Court
State University of New York at Buffalo
University of Bridgeport
The Firm is pleased to announce that Firm partner Andrew M. Roth has successfully defended the Village of Westbury in a series of State Court and Federal Court litigations arising out of the Village’s sale of certain real property in the Village for nonpayment of real-property taxes. In the most recent of the litigations, the property owner commenced an action in Federal District Court challenging the sale as an unlawful taking of its property in violation of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, relying on the recently decided decision of the United States Supreme Court in Tyler v. Hennepin County. The Federal District Court dismissed the case on the grounds that the property owner’s claim was barred by the doctrine of res judicata, a common-law doctrine that bars the re-litigation of issues that were raised or could have been raised in prior judicial proceedings between the same parties. The property owner appealed the ruling to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, which affirmed the ruling and upheld the dismissal of the case. A copy of the Second Circuit’s order can be found below.
Read the Second Circuit’s OrderFirm Partners, Andrew M. Roth and Joseph R. Bjarnson, obtained a preliminary injunction to prevent the Firm’s client, Mount Sinai Pentecostal Church of Hicksville, NY, from losing their Church property to a tax lien purchaser after more than $1 million in real property taxes were unlawfully assessed against the Church. In the case, the Firm argued, among other things, that the Church was mandatorily exempt from real property taxation under the New York State Real Property Tax Law and that any taxes assessed against the Church property should be declared void. Nassau County opposed the Firm’s application for a preliminary injunction and sought to have the case dismissed. The Honorable Randy Sue Marber, Justice of the New York State Supreme Court, County of Nassau, found that injunctive relief was appropriate because the Church had a “high likelihood of success on the merits” of its claim seeking to have the real property taxes assessed against its property declared void and denied the motion to dismiss.