UTICA (LN) — U.S. District Judge Anthony Brindisi of the Northern District of New York denied Kingston's motion to dismiss the civil-rights lawsuit, ruling that the property owners' demand for monetary damages preserves a live controversy despite the canopy's destruction. Two claims — equal protection and substantive due process — did not survive.
The canopy of the dispute was installed in 1969 as part of an urban renewal plan proposed by artist John Pike. Under easements signed by the plaintiffs' predecessors, the city was responsible for maintaining the structure, which was physically fastened to more than 40 buildings in Kingston's historic Stockade District. The plaintiffs — eight limited liability companies — allege the city stopped performing required maintenance, allowed the canopy to deteriorate, and then demolished it in retaliation for their filing notices of claim and pursuing litigation.
Brindisi rejected the city's mootness argument, finding that the plaintiffs' claims for compensatory and punitive damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 preserve a live controversy. The city had argued that because its contractor finished tearing down the canopy in early 2026, there was nothing left to adjudicate.
Brindisi also rejected the city's bid for Colorado River abstention, walking through all six factors and finding that the balance weighed against deferring to parallel state-court proceedings. The judge noted that the federal action turns primarily on federal constitutional claims, that the state negligence and breach-of-contract suit involves a temporally distinct set of facts, and that the city's quiet-title action seeks only forward-looking equitable relief — neither qualifies as a parallel proceeding under Second Circuit precedent.
On res judicata, the court held that none of the surviving claims could have been raised in the plaintiffs' earlier state-court class action, which was filed more than a year before the demolition occurred. The Appellate Division for the Third Department had affirmed dismissal of that suit in 2025, entering a declaratory judgment that the canopy is city property — but Brindisi held that collateral estoppel effect extends only to the issues actually decided in prior proceedings, such as ownership, and does not reach the constitutional questions raised by the demolition itself.
The Fifth Amendment takings claim cleared the pleading bar because, Brindisi wrote, the plaintiffs plausibly alleged that the canopy was "mechanically fastened to, embedded in, and structurally integrated into" their buildings, and that its removal caused direct and immediate interference with their properties. The judge also noted that under Knick v. Township of Scott, the plaintiffs need not exhaust state compensation procedures before bringing a federal takings claim.
The First Amendment retaliation claim survived as well. The complaint alleges that Mayor Steven T. Noble launched a public campaign directly targeting William Gottlieb Management Co., LLC after the plaintiffs filed their notices of claim, issuing press releases, social-media posts, radio interviews, and official city communications accusing the plaintiffs of "harassing mom-and-pop businesses," "draining taxpayer dollars," "burying the City in lawsuits," and "using deep pockets to break the City," and urging residents to flood the plaintiffs' New York City headquarters with calls and letters. Brindisi held those allegations, combined with the timing of the demolition resolutions, sufficient to plausibly allege retaliatory motive.
Two claims did not survive. The "class of one" equal protection theory failed because the complaint itself alleges the city offered settlement agreements to the plaintiffs and other affected owners alike, undercutting the disparate-treatment element. The substantive due process claim was dismissed on the separate ground that the Takings Clause provides the explicit constitutional text governing the alleged deprivation, leaving no room for a freestanding due process theory.
The plaintiffs' preliminary injunction motion was denied as moot — the canopy is gone, and the court found no feasible way to reconstruct it, citing the plaintiffs' own concession at a January hearing: "[W]e can't get the canopy back and we can't get the historic character of the buildings back."
The city awarded a demolition-only contract for approximately $0.87 million; the plaintiffs allege the contract included none of the required access agreements, restoration work, or sidewalk repairs, and that the completed demolition left a continuous band of exposed connections and cut flashing lines across their buildings.