Judge Orders East Hampton Trustees to Pay $1M in Fees in Truck Beach Case

A Suffolk County judge ordered the East Hampton Town Trustees to pay more than $1 million in legal fees to plaintiffs in the latest twist in the long-running Truck Beach case — a ruling that the trustees plan to appeal.

Judge Thomas Whelan rejected a motion from attorneys for the trustees seeking to have the fees paid by the town government itself and not the nine trustees as individuals. He also ruled that since the trustees are an entity created in Colonial times before the state Constitution was written with a clause to automatically grant stays to delay enforcement of judges orders pending appeals, the trustees may not be able to delay payment to the plaintiffs in the case.

“The trustees disagree with some of the language within this decision and are currently evaluating our options,” Christopher A. Carillo, a Montauk-based attorney for the defendants, told Dan’s Papers. “We will continue to vigorously defend this case and look forward to doing so as the Appellate process unfolds.”

Former Judge Paul Baisley had found the town and trustees in criminal contempt for not enforcing an appeals court ruling that banned the public from driving on Truck Beach — a nearly mile-long stretch of sand in Napeague — following a lengthy lawsuit pitting wealthy oceanfront homeowners against longtime local commercial fishermen. 

“Supreme Court has once again ruled against the trustees in this 15-year fight,” retired Judge James Catterson, a partner in the Manhattan-based law firm of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, which represents the plaintiffs in the case, said in a statement. “The town and trustees lost in the Appellate Division, lost in Supreme Court on contempt after a three-day hearing, lost their motion opposing discovery in the contempt proceeding, lost two more motions made to undo both the contempt and the restraining order against them, and their attempts to bring new actions over Truck Beach were both dismissed. The court has now ruled that it is time to pay the piper.”

Town officials were not immediately available for comment. The development is just one part of unresolved litigation surrounding the Truck Beach fight, which most recently included an attorney for the fishermen filing a $25 million libel lawsuit against Baisley.