After three years of legal wrangling, the U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear Brinkmann Hardware’s case against Southold Town over the town’s use of eminent domain to take a property in Mattituck where the company had been planning a hardware store.
The town states it is planning to use the property as a public park, although the Brinkmanns’ attorneys have argued in court that town’s plan was solely to halt the business from building the hardware store.
Pictured Above: Ben and Hank Brinkmann. |. Institute for Justice courtesy photo
Brinkmann Hardware, which has five locations on Long Island, bought 1.7 acres on the corner of the Main Road and New Suffolk Avenue, across from the Handy Pantry, in 2018, hoping to build a 12,000-square-foot hardware store and an 8,000-square-foot paint store on the site.
After a great deal of local public opposition to the project, including a campaign by the Mattituck-Laurel Civic Association to “Save the Last Green Corner,” pressure to make a public park at the site and a 2019 development moratorium along a one-mile corridor of the Main Road that included the property, the Southold Town Board agreed in 2020 to go ahead with eminent domain proceedings to force the sale of the parcel to the town.
Brothers Hank and Ben Brinkmann then teamed up with the Institute for Justice, a pro-bono public interest law firm, to file a claim that the town’s taking of the property violates the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, whose Public Use Clause “requires that Southold’s asserted public use for taking the Brinkmanns’ land is the actual reason the town is taking the property,” according to the Institute for Justice’s legal claim.
“The town’s attempt to justify its use of eminent domain by taking the land for a park is mere pretext,” the law firm added. “The town’s lack of a plan for a park, coupled with the overwhelming evidence that the town was trying to stop the hardware store from being built, proves that the town is not really using eminent domain for a public use. Instead, Southold is using eminent domain only to halt a law-abiding business.”
Southold Town has not considered potential upgrades to the heavily wooded parcel, which is on a curve considered to be one of the four most dangerous intersections in the town, while the litigation was proceeding. The town board briefly discussed the possibility of a walking path along the Main Road and a possible park bench on the site at a work session in July, though some board members wondered aloud if the conversation was premature due to the status of the litigation.
The case wended its way through federal courts for the past three years, with the Brinkmanns filing a petition for a writ of certioriari to the high court on June 11 of this year.
On Oct. 21, 2024, the Supreme Court denied their petition to hear the case, though Justices Clarance Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh said they would grant the petition, falling short of the four justices necessary to bring the case before the court, according to court records.
“The court’s decision is a disappointment but our decision to bring this case to court was still the right thing to do,” said Ben and Hank Brinkmann in the Institute for Justice’s Oct. 22 public statement on the case. “Government shouldn’t be able to get away with these abuses of power and shining a light on them like we did with the help of IJ will continue to build public support so that one day no one will have to go through what we have.”
“Every petition to the Supreme Court is a long shot because the Court only takes a few dozen cases each year, out of thousands of petitions,” said Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Jeff Redfern. “While the Brinkmanns’ case may be over, we will continue to represent property owners all over the country, whenever they are threatened by eminent domain abuse.”
The National Association of Realtors filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Brinkmanns before the Supreme Court in July, stating the Second Circuit Court decision to allow the eminent domain proceedings to begin would threaten to “chill beneficial property development, raise costs for consumers, and eviscerate the fundamental property rights of Americans to buy, sell, improve and develop real property.”
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Southern California also filed an amicus brief arguing that eminent domain threatens “the fundamental property rights of minorities and other disfavored groups,” and that the Takings Clause allowing eminent domain “has often been misused as a pretext to seize the property of disfavored groups,” arguing that the town’s decision was similar to cases of historic discrimination against property rights of Black land owners, alleging that a member of the town board “took to the local paper to object that town officials were targeting the Brinkmanns because they didn’t “like the family.”
In its response to Brinkmann’s Supreme Court petition, Southold Town described its purpose behind eminent domain as the “paradigmatic public use of a park,” adding that brothers Hank and Ben Brinkmann “intended to construct a big box hardware store in a small, semi-rural hamlet on eastern Long Island.”
The town added that the District Court had previously ruled in favor of Southold because the Brinkmanns “failed to allege a private benefit” to the town’s use of eminent domain.
“It is uncontested that the purpose of the taking in this case is a public park, long recognized by this court as a bona fide public use,” said the town in its filing, prepared by James M. Catterson of the Manhattan firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitmann LLP.
“The Brinkmanns further contend that pretextual public uses perpetuate grave injustices against marginalized groups,” the town’s filing adds. “Setting aside that the Brinkmanns belong to no such group, other constitutional protections, including the Equal Protection, Free Exercise, and Due Process Clauses, serve as safeguards against so-called despotic uses of the eminent domain power.”
“The Supreme Court’s decision not to grant a writ of certiorari effectively ends the Brinkmanns’ pursuit to build a big-box hardware store at 12500 Main Road, Mattituck,” said Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski in a statement Thursday morning. “The proposed store faced strong public opposition due to its location in a congested area of downtown Mattituck which comprised the last remaining green space in the area. This lawsuit is now over and Southold’s right to determine the fate of its community has been upheld.”
“This is a momentous outcome for the Town of Southold and specifically the hamlet of Mattituck,” he added. “This parcel lies within the heart of the town and will forever remain natural and undisturbed, open to the use, recreation and enjoyment of our residents.”
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