30 A.D.2d 1042 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1968
Judgment modified on the law and facts reducing the amount of the award to $45,295, and as modified affirmed, without costs. Certain findings of fact and conclusions of law disapproved and reversed and new findings made. Memorandum: The appropriation on April 6, 1964 took 14.479 acres of claimants’ land which they purchased on August 28, 1963 for $1,586 per acre and also took .496 acre which they purchased on September 16, 1963 for $5,000. The trial court, in awarding direct damages of $149,750 and consequential damages of $72,100 to 15.345 landlocked acres, erroneously disregarded the amount that claimants paid for the land less than eight months prior to the taking and did not consider the assessed valuation thereof. Evidence of the sales to claimants and the assessed valuation of the land was relevant, material and competent upon the issue of damages. (Court of Claims Act, § 16.) Being recent in time and not explained away as abnormal in any fashion it was “the very best evidence, because directly reflective of market value” (Matter of Lane Bryant v. Tax Comm. of City of New York, 21 A D 2d 669, 670, affd. 19 N Y 2d 715). Claimants’ expert based his opinion on market value and appraised the property at $24,000 per acre. None of the comparable sales used by him were of property located in the vicinity of the land appropriated or in a comparable area. State’s expert valued the land taken at $2,000 per acre. The record shows that claimants’ purchases of