Cuddy & Feder LLP secured an important victory for its clients, Graham Windham and the Greenburgh-Graham Union Free School District, in a case involving claims for breach of contract and Section 1983 substantive due process violations against the City of Yonkers when the Westchester Supreme Court denied key portions of Yonkers’ motion to dismiss, thereby allowing our clients to proceed with claims for breach of a century-old contract for water service and for unlawful violations of Graham Windham’s substantive due process rights.
Graham Windham is a nonprofit founded in 1806 by a group including Eliza Hamilton and is dedicated to child welfare. In response to Yonkers’ ongoing threats to cut off water supply to the Graham School, which serves special-needs and at-risk minors in the New York and Westchester area, we filed an action against Yonkers and various City departments and agencies alleging that this conduct constituted a breach of the parties’ implied contract for services and violated Graham Windham’s due process rights.
In denying the key aspects of Yonkers’ motion to dismiss, the Court found that Graham Windham had sufficiently pleaded (1) the existence of an implied contract for water service with Yonkers and (2) that Yonkers’ motivations for attempting to breach that contract were political in nature and taken in an effort to benefit its own locally-based movie studio at the expense of a potential competitor that sought to purchase a portion of Graham Windham’s property.
The case is Graham Windham, et al. v. The City of Yonkers, et al., Index No. 75618/2024 (Sup. Ct. Westchester Cnty.). The Decision and Order may be found at Doc. No. 60.