People's Gas & Electric Co. v. State

Headnote

State —■ claim for loss of. use and cost of restoring electric light plant damaged in course of construction of Barge canal.

People’s Gas & Electric Co. of Oswego v. State of N. Y., 189 App. Div. 421 , affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court in the fourth judicial department, entered December 29, 1919, modifying and affirming as modified a judgment, in favor of plaintiff entered upon an award of the Court of Claims. Three claims involved were consolidated. They alleged in ■ substance that claimant is the owner of an electric fighting station located in the city of Oswego, lying to the west of the Oswego canal and between the Oswego canal and the Oswego river, to which property is appurtenant certain water rights set forth and described in two

leases; that the state, in the course of constructing the Barge canal, by moving about seven feet to the west the west wall of the improved canal, narrowed, by about seven feet, the' forebay of said lighting plant, and, in the course of prosecuting Barge canal- contract No. 35, destroyed a pair of culverts, known as culvert No. 5, which conducted water from a hydraulic canal under and across the navigation canal, to claimant’s forebay, thereby temporarily interrupting the flow of water from the hydraulic canal to claimant’s forebay and depriving claimant of the beneficial use and enjoyment of said lighting plant property from and after’ the 22d day of August, 1910. Claimant sought to recover the usable value of its lighting plant property from August 22, 1910, to August 22, 1916, and the cost of restoring it to the condition in which -it was prior to the interference by the state.