If anyone thought litigation regarding a landfill in the town of Carroll was over, think again.

Attorneys for the town of Carroll and the Jones family filed memorandums in state Supreme Court late last week asking Justice Grace Hanlon to declare summary judgment to bring the case, finally, to an end. The filings are part of a flurry of activity in the case in the wake of the Fourth Department Appellate Division’s ruling in June that left only one remaining claim to be adjudicated between the town and the landfill’s owners.

Carroll officials are represented by Jeffrey Stravino and Cheyenne Freely of Hodgson Russ LLP in Buffalo. The town is requesting summary judgment against the claim by Carol Jones, executor of the estate of Donald J. Jones, and Jones-Carroll Inc. that the town’s 2007 moratorium on landfill expansion be ruled an unlawful taking of property. Carroll officials say the Fourth Department Appellate Division ruled in 2014 that the Jones family had not met the legal burden to demonstrate a regulatory taking of property and argue that burden has not yet been met 10 years later.

“The property can produce a reasonable return under the property’s permitted uses,” Stravino and Freely wrote in their memorandum. “Plaintiffs can also sell the property and generate a more than reasonable return. Even if plaintiff could not produce a reasonable return from the property, the 2007 law is a public health, safety and welfare statute that has repeatedly been upheld by the Appellate Division. This is the law of the case. Because the 2007 law is a valid exercise of the Town of Carroll’s police powers, there can be no regulatory taking.”

Attorneys Daryl Brautigam of Fredonia, Alan Knauf, Amy Kendall and Eamon Danieu of Knauf Shaw LLP of Rochester, argue the 2007 law should be considered a regulatory taking because a 2005 law that zoned landfills out of the town did not apply to the Jones-Carroll property. The attorneys argue the 2007 law then extinguished the vested property right to expand and operate the landfill as had been recognized by the state Court of Appeals, the highest appeals court in the state.

The Jones’ family’s attorneys argue the 2007 law has deprived the family of the only economically beneficial use of the property by destroying the value of the property because the only use of the land is to be a landfill. There are no remaining uses available, the attorneys state, because a buyer would have to remove all of the debris buried at the site.

“The Court of Appeals has already determined that the plaintiffs acquired a vested property right to operate their C&D landfill on the entirety of their property,” the attorneys wrote in their memorandum. “In determining that plaintiffs required the use variance to make a reasonable return on the property, the town’s (Zoning Board of Appeals) created this vested right. Plaintiffs’ actions manifesting their intention to use the entire property for the landfill solidified the vested right. The Court of Appeals recognized its maturity and legitimacy; thus plaintiffs’ vested right pre-dated the 2007 law. The 2007 law, determined by this court to be a valid law, has extinguished that vested right, and thus was a taking of the vested right to expand and operate the landfill on the entire property that was recognized by the Court of Appeals.”