Rose v. State

29 A.D.2d 1003, 289 N.Y.S.2d 553, 1968 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4131
CourtAppellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York
DecidedApril 29, 1968
DocketClaim No. 44349; Claim No. 46604
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 29 A.D.2d 1003 (Rose v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rose v. State, 29 A.D.2d 1003, 289 N.Y.S.2d 553, 1968 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4131 (N.Y. Ct. App. 1968).

Opinion

Garrielli, J.

The State appeals from a judgment of the Court of Claims awarding damages to the claimants in the sum of $208,615, with interest, for the permanent appropriation, for highway purposes, of certain riparian rights and the destruction of claimants’ water system, as well as the sum of $45,000, with interest, for the temporary interference with and taking of their water supply. The claimant Walter C. Rose was the owner of 20 acres of land in the Town of Chenango with river frontage of some 1,400 feet, and upon which there had been constructed several buildings for the purpose of carrying on certain business ventures dealing with the processing and sale of concrete and its components. He was also the owner, operator and sole stockholder of both of the corporate claimants. Upon this land, the claimant Binghamton Sand and Crushed Stone Corporation was engaged in the business of processing and sale of gravel, stone and sand while the claimant McIntosh Ready Mix Concrete Corporation was engaged in the business of the production and sale of ready-mix concrete, located several miles north of the City of Binghamton. These business ventures had been conducted upon this property for 30 years by claimants and their predecessors. The individual claimant being the sole owner of the corporate claimants, all parties and the court treated the claims as having a unity of interest and the claims were tried and considered together. By its appropriation, and in order to straighten the river channel and protect the new Interstate 81, as well as to obtain gravel from the river bed, the State appropriated a portion of the bed of the Chenango River, and in so doing it destroyed the claimants’ existing source of water as well as access to the river along the southern half of their eastern boundary, and simultaneously placed fill along this portion of the property thus completely separating claimants’ property from the river at this point and destroying the riparian rights previously enjoyed. Prior to the appropriation, claimants’ requirements for water consisted of from 800,000 to 1,500,000 gallons daily which was obtained from that portion of the channel which was appropriated in fee. The water intake and discharge points for the sand and gravel plant were situated on or immediately adjacent to the portion appropriated. The State does not contest that part of the judgment which awarded damages in the sum of $45,000 for the temporary taking of the water supply and we, therefore, concern ourselves only with the State’s contention that the court erred in its assessment of damages, for the permanent appropriation (1) in valuing the property based upon claimants’ necessity to relocate its entire operation and; (2) adopting a “salvage value” test as to the value of the improvements after the taking; and (3) in valuing the property and improvements by the use of reproduction costs less depreciation. When it was learned that the existing source was to be destroyed, and because of the need for large amounts of water, steps were undertaken to determine whether a sufficient water supply could be otherwise had on or near the property. The record shows that the daily requirements for operating the plant consisted of an amount equal to 10% of the entire water supply of the City of Binghamton, obviously rendering any such contemplated use or scheme impractical and unfeasible. The engineering tests conducted by claimants confirmed that from an economic and engineering point of view, there would not be an adequate supply of water and the businesses were then relocated upon premises some four miles north of the former operations, where a suitable supply was located. Because of the intimate relationship between the two businesses and particularly the dependence of the ready mix operations upon the [1004]*1004sand and gravel business, both operations were relocated. The State does not rebut nor question the integration between the two businesses. In an effort to establish that it was not necessary to relocate the operations of the claimants, the State offered testimony to prove there were three methods by which the water supply could be reestablished. While conceding that two of the plans were unsatisfactory, it urged that a third plan, conceived after the trial had begun and which called for a system of galleries under the river, might provide an adequate supply. Of compelling interest, it appears from the evidence and as the court has found, that the State did not effectively contest the claimants’ proof that such a scheme would be unworkable and, in fact, could not account for the conditions to be found when the channel and area would periodically become dry. The State further maintains that the trial court erred in failing to award damages based on the feasibility and availability of a claimed proven water supply on the claimants’ property; and asserts that the court ignored the mandate laid down in Mayes Co. v. State of New York (18 N Y 2d 549) wherein the Court of Appeals remanded for a new trial on the ground that the award there made was based on the erroneous theory of the cost of another water supply when there was uncontradieted proof of the feasibility of drilling wells to provide an adequate supply on the subject property in that case. Here, not only was there no proof, uncontradieted or otherwise, that the drilling of any wells could replace the required water supply, but the court found upon the testimony of both the claimants and the State, that it was not feasible to thus provide a new water supply. The facts in the case at bar serve as no parallel with Mayes for here even the engineer produced by the ‘State rejected consideration of cost estimates for any such system of wells by stating that any exploration or boring would be “mere speculation ”, despite the fact that he had the boring records of the State Department of Public Works in the general area of the improvement. There was evidence upon which the court could (and did) conclude that the plan was “extremely vague and utterly lacking in substantiating data” and additionally, that in dry periods water disappeared completely in .the area thus making the proposal highly speculative. There was additional proof that even if a water supply should be found by the use of a series of wells, there would be no assurance of any continuity thereof since some municipality or other source might hit the same “acquifer” supplying claimants thereby lowering .the supply below claimants’ demands. While we recognize the sound basis for the rule laid down in Mayes v. State of New York (18 N Y 2d 549, 554, supra), that recovery may not “‘be had for losses which the person injured might have prevented by reasonable effort and expenditures’”, the evidence here does not reveal that either reasonable efforts or expenditures would have prevented or mitigated the found destruction of claimants’ water supply. Although not seriously urged by the State, any fallacious suggestion that claimants could obtain water from the City of Binghamton was properly rejected, for the uncontradieted proof shows that the plant’s needs would constitute 10% of the entire city’s supply which would create a potential danger to the city’s needs for .the maintenance of the health and safety of its inhabitants. The trial court’s determination that the appropriation destroyed claimants’ water system and supply as well as the utility of the property for the purpose for which it was being used was properly made and finds adequate support in the record.

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Bluebook (online)
29 A.D.2d 1003, 289 N.Y.S.2d 553, 1968 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4131, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rose-v-state-nyappdiv-1968.