ELLIS v. TOWN OF EAST HAMPTON (2025)

DECISION & ORDER

In an action, inter alia, pursuant to RPAPL article 15 to quiet title to real property, the plaintiff appeals from (1) an order of the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Sanford Neil Berland, J.), dated December 21, 2020, and (2) an order of the same court (Kathy G. Bergmann, J.) dated April 16, 2021.  The order dated December 21, 2020, denied the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment on the complaint and granted the cross-motion of the defendant Town of East Hampton, New York, for summary judgment declaring that the defendant Town of East Hampton, New York, is the sole owner of, and the plaintiff has no ownership interest or prescriptive easement in, the subject real property.  The order dated April 16, 2021, determined that the order dated December 21, 2020, disposed of the action.

Motion by the respondent and the defendants William Wilkinson, Larry Penny, and East Hampton Town Natural Resources Department, inter alia, to dismiss the appeal from the order dated December 21, 2020, on the ground that it has been vacated and the right of direct appeal from that order terminated upon entry in the above-entitled action of the judgment.  By decision and order on motion dated October 30, 2023, that branch of the motion which is to dismiss the appeal from the order dated December 21, 2020, was held in abeyance and referred to the panel of Justices hearing the appeal for determination upon the argument or submission thereof.

Upon the papers filed in support of the motion and the papers filed in opposition thereto, and upon the argument of the appeal, it is

ORDERED that the branch of the motion which is to dismiss the appeal from the order dated December 21, 2020, is granted;  and it is further,

ORDERED that the appeals from the orders dated December 21, 2020, and April 16, 2021, are dismissed as academic, without costs or disbursements.

The appeals from the orders dated December 21, 2020, and April 16, 2021, have been rendered academic by a subsequent order dated September 9, 2021, which vacated the December 21, 2020 order (see Matter of Winona Pi., 86 A.D.3d 542, 926 N.Y.S.2d 324).

CONNOLLY, J.P., WOOTEN, DOWLING and LOVE, JJ., concur.