Second Circuit Court of Appeals Holds Takings Claims were Unripe as No Final Decision Had Been Made by Village

This post was authored by Matthew Loeser, Esq.
In this case, Sagaponack Realty, LLC, Sagaponack Ventures, LLC and Marc Goldman (collectively “SRLLC”) appealed from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York granting the motion to dismiss brought by defendants Village of Sagaponack, Donald Louchheim, Lee Foster, William Barbour, Lisa Duryea Thayer, and Joy Sieger.
On appeal, SRLLC first argued the district court erred in the dismissal of its equal protection claim on the ground that SRLLC failed to plead an adequate comparator. The court found that while the same property was involved in both applications, the site plan applications and subdivision applications were not the same. Thus, the court upheld the district court’s holding that plaintiffs failed to plead an adequate comparator.
SRLLC next contended that the district court erred in dismissing its takings claim as unripe. The record reflected that the district court found the takings claim was not ripe because a final decision had not been made on SRLLC’s 2016 Subdivision Application. Here, the Village withheld a final decision on the competing applications made for use of the property pending the decision by the state court as to which party has the authority to proceed. Accordingly, the futility exception did not apply, and the order of the district court was affirmed.
Sagaponack Realty, LLC v. Village of Sagaponack, 2019 WL 4894503 (2nd Cir. CA 10/4/2019)