EHA Partner Carmela Di Talia has been recognized as the 2012 Director of the Year of the Riverhead Chamber of Commerce.  Ms. Di Talia, who has served on the Board of Directors since 2011, received the award at the Riverhead Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Awards Dinner at the Vineyard Caterers in Aquebogue on December 6, 2012.

The Appellate Division, Second Department, has dismissed an owner’s claim in a construction dispute alleging a breach of warranty, in Snow v. Seff, 2012 NY Slip Op 6201.  The contractor successfully argued that the owner waived his claim for breach of warranty by failing to give the contractor proper notice of the alleged defect.

The Supreme Court, Suffolk County has dismissed a petition to invalidate East Hampton Airport’s Master Plan Update (MPU) and Airport Layout Plan (ALP), in Committee v. Wilkinson, Index No. 10-41928.
The Court rejected the petitioners’ claims that the Town of East Hampton violated the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA), instead concluding that the Town performed a proper environmental review when it adopted the MPU and ALP in September of 2010

EHA Partner Carmela Di Talia has been installed as a Director of the Suffolk County Women’s Bar Association (SCWBA).  SCWBA is the local chapter of the New York State Women’s Bar Association, an organization comprised of over 3,800 members statewide, including prominent attorneys and judges.

The Appellate Division, Second Department has affirmed the grant of summary judgment to a landowner who sought to set aside a “tax deed” to property taken by the County of Suffolk due to unpaid taxes, in Bridgehampton Development Corp. v. County of Suffolk, 2012 N.Y.Slip Op. 04963.  The appeals court agreed with the trial court that the County violated the landowner’s constitutional right to due process of law by failing to provide notice, by mail, of the original tax lien sale.  As a result of the case, the original owner’s title to the property was restored.

The Supreme Court, Suffolk County has struck down the “adjacent area” regulations in the Village of Sagaponack’s Coastal Erosion Hazard Area (CEHA) law in Petrello v. Board of Trustees of the Village of Sagaponack, Index No. 26159/2011.  The plaintiffs successfully argued that the Village’s adjacent area regulations, which were modeled after the Town of Southapton’s unique CEHA regulations, exceeded the Village’s power to impose CEHA regulations under State Law.

The Appellate Division, Second Department, upheld a trial judgment in favor of a homeowner for a contractor’s breach of the housing merchant implied warranty of General Business Law 777-a, in Link v. Sarcona, 2012 NY Slip Op 02642

EHA’s Managing Partner, Stephen Angel, served as a Visiting Professor with the Faculty of Law at the University of Miskolc, in Miskolc, Hungary.  Mr. Angel taught a two-week certificate course to the University’s students on United States Civil Procedural, from March 26th to April 6th.

The Supreme Court, Suffolk County, after a trial, resolved a boundary dispute between a landowner and the East Hampton Town Trustees by concluding that the landowner held title up to the “line of beach grass on the beach of the Atlantic Ocean,” in Macklowe v. Trustees of the Town of East Hampton, Suffolk Index No. 8740-08.  The court rejected the Trustees’ claim that the beach grass line should be considered a fixed boundary and instead agreed with the landowner that the boundary was ambulatory.

The Supreme Court, Suffolk County overturned a planning board’s denial of a site plan for a single family residence in 55 Wainscott Hollow, LLC v. Planning Board of Appeals of the Town of East Hampton, Index No. 09-49444