Opinion
October 24, 1967
Appeal by the State, on the ground of excessiveness, from a judgment of the Court of Claims awarding damages for the appropriation of lands for highway purposes. Taken was all of claimant's property, consisting of 1.77 acres of land with a complex of buildings used in the manufacture of bowling pins, as well as a combination office and residence building. Certain water facilities were appurtenant to the property. The award of $85,000 was highly excessive but, even so, was still but one half, approximately, of the completely unsupportable valuation of $167,000 to which the claimant's expert Hoagland testified. Asked as to the method employed in making his appraisal, this witness said that he "considered the income approach * * * considered the reconstruction costs of the property * * * considered the use of the property"; but, asked on cross-examination whether he had "prepare[d] an income capitalization method", as he had testified he had, he replied, "Not on paper. I did it in my head"; and asked whether he had prepared the reconstruction cost approach to which he had alluded, he said "No, because I would arrive at too high a figure for market value." There was no further substantiation of either of these two methods of evaluation supposedly underlying this expert's appraisal. His evidence respecting market value was likewise unsubstantiated. Although he said that in estimating market value he considered a number of "factors that would affect the marketability" and thereupon enumerated them, he gave no information whatsoever as to the particular relevance of any of them or as to the relative weight, monetarily or otherwise, that he attached to any one or more of them. Although he indicated at another time that he considered the sales prices of other properties and named three of them, he gave no testimony at all as to the bases of their comparability nor even as to the dates of the sales or the prices paid. Thus, his appraisal was no more than "a conclusory ultimate valuation" lacking any demonstrated foundation or factual support and must be rejected as without probative force. ( Fredenburgh v. State of New York, 26 A.D.2d 966.) The State's argument encompasses these many and fatal deficiencies in the claimant's proof and properly attacks the trial court's findings as thus predicated upon wholly unsubstantiated evidence. The additional contentions advanced by the State with respect to the time and method of evaluation adopted by the trial court and with respect to its decision generally have not been clearly established but have become academic in any event, in view of our rejection of the claimant's proof of damage. We find in the record sufficient evidence to enable us to determine valuation and damage, by recourse to the proof adduced from the State's expert and by our independent analysis of the substantiating data underlying his appraisal. Giving weight to the comparable sales to which this witness testified, particularly to the Sherwood-Quick sale at $55,000 and to the testimony concerning the properties and appurtenances in each case involved, with some consideration to claimant's original purchase of its property for $65,000 and some subsequent improvement thereof, we evaluate the plant area at $50,000 and the dwelling house area at $12,000 at the time of the appropriation, the total being $62,000, which is also the amount of claimant's damage. Judgment modified, on the law and the facts, so as to reduce the award to $62,000 and appropriate interest and, as so modified, affirmed, without costs. Gibson, P.J., Reynolds, Aulisi, Staley, Jr., and Gabrielli, JJ., concur in memorandum Per Curiam.