Palmer v. State

Headnote

Palmer v. State of N. Y., 174 App. Div. 933 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the third judicial department, entered September 26, 1916, affirming a determination of the Court of Claims awarding claimants compensation in the sum of $825,000, with interest from July 3, 1912, amounting in all to the sum of $960,712.50, for certain lands, structures and waters alleged to have been owned

by claimants and appropriated by the state on July 3, 1912, under the provisions of chapter J46 of the Laws of 1911, for a barge canal .terminal. The lands appropriated are located at or near the junction of Newtown creek and East river in the port of New York, at G-reenpoint. It was conceded that the claimants had good title to all of the original upland, and have succeeded to all of the rights acquired by the original grantees from the state of the filled-in land and land under water. The state disputed the title to the land below high-water line so acquired by the original grantees. The state contended that all of the lands originally under water were owned by the state, and by the city of New York at the date of the service of the appropriation map, and not by the claimants; but, by whomsoever owned, such lands were subject to the uses and purposes of commerce, and that private interests therein, if any, were merely incidental to the use of such lands for commerce purposes and must yield thereto.