## Facts

- The State of New York condemned portions of unsold cemetery land from three claimants: Diocese of Buffalo, Buffalo Burial Park Association, and St. Stanislaus Roman Catholic Church Society, for a highway project.
- The takings affected unsold grave-plot sections but did not prevent the cemeteries from continuing to operate as cemeteries.
- The valuation approach used treated the highest and best use of the land as continued cemetery use and estimated value from expected retail grave sales.
- Under this per-grave method, the factfinder estimated probable grave-sale prices using sales in adjoining sections, deducted expected selling and related costs, projected the sales period, and discounted future receipts to present value.
- In the Diocese claim, approximately 3,500 grave sites were taken from a cemetery containing about 65,450 grave sites; the court derived an average per-grave value from the total present value and multiplied by the number of graves taken to compute the award.
- Similar per-grave computations were made for the other two cemeteries.

## Issues

1. In a partial taking of cemetery land valued by a per-grave, discounted-future-sales method, must just compensation be measured strictly by the general “before and after” rule, or may the court directly value the part taken using the per-grave method?

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals largely affirmed (with specified modifications) the awards to the cemetery claimants.
- The court held that, for cemetery land valued by the per-grave method, it was proper to value the part taken directly by applying the per-grave method to the graves taken.
- The court rejected the State’s argument that compensation must be limited to the difference between the total value of the whole cemetery before the taking and the value of the remainder after the taking.

## Legal Principles

- The general measure of damages in partial takings is the difference between the value of the whole property before the taking and the value of the remainder after the taking, but the measure is not an inflexible formula.
- For cemetery property, highest-and-best-use valuation may properly be derived from the present value of projected retail grave sales, net of costs, discounted over the expected sales period.
- When the per-grave method is the accepted basis for valuing cemetery land, just compensation for a partial taking may be determined by allocating an average per-grave value to the number of graves taken, rather than by a mechanical application of a “before and after” calculation that understates the value of the land appropriated.
- Just compensation requires payment for the fair value of the real property interest actually appropriated, not merely a marginal change in a discounted total valuation of the remaining operation.

## Conclusion

The court held that partial takings of cemetery land may be compensated by directly valuing the graves taken under the per-grave, discounted-future-sales approach, and it declined to confine damages to a strict before-and-after difference where that method would fail to reflect the value of the land appropriated.


Diocese of Buffalo v. State, 24 N.Y.2d 320, 248 N.E.2d 155 (N.Y. 1969)