Federal District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of the Southern District of New York late yesterday dismissed a lawsuit seeking to stop construction of the new stadium that the New York Yankees are building in the Bronx. In her 57-page opinion, Judge Buchwald rejected plaintiffs’ challenges to the National Park Service’s decision to approve the construction project. The Yankees began construction of the new stadium in August, after two Justices of the New York Supreme Court rejected plaintiffs’ first attempt to halt the project by seeking injunctive relief in state court.
The new stadium is expected to host Opening Day of the 2009 baseball season. It will be a state-of-the-art facility located near the existing stadium on portions of John Mullaly Park and Macomb’s Dam Park. The site of the existing stadium, as well as additional parcels of land, will be developed into a larger park, which will offer more recreational space and new sports and other recreational facilities to replace the outdated ones that the project has displaced.
Jonathan Schiller of Boies, Schiller and Flexner, LLP, lead counsel for the Yankees in both cases said, “We are pleased that, after careful consideration of the record, Judge Buchwald rejected this latest attempt to derail the new Yankee Stadium. Her decision means that all New Yorkers will get to enjoy the new stadium and the new parks. It will also mean that residents of the Bronx will benefit from the City’s plan to invest $160 million in the neighborhood.”
Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, founded in 1997, has become one of the nation’s premier law firms. It has approximately 240 lawyers in offices located in New York, Washington, D.C., California, Florida, New Hampshire and Las Vegas. Best known for landmark cases such as United States v. Microsoft, Bush v. Gore, and In re Vitamins, the firm represents some of the largest and most sophisticated organizations in the world in their most important matters. The firm has been described by The Wall Street Journal as a “national litigation powerhouse” and by the National Law Journal as “unafraid to venture into controversial” and “high risk” matters. Boies, Schiller & Flexner can be visited on the web at www.bsfllp.com