## Facts

- The City of New York used eminent domain to take numerous properties in Manhattan for the Lincoln Square Slum Clearance Project, an urban-renewal redevelopment effort.
- After title was acquired, the Supreme Court of New York, New York County (Special Term) conducted proceedings to fix condemnation values and determine just compensation for individual parcels.
- One of the parcels at issue was a large improved property owned by a private claimant.
- About one year before the condemnation-value proceeding, the owner sought a reduction of the property’s real estate tax assessment.
- In that tax review matter, the owner submitted a sworn statement to tax authorities asserting that the parcel’s value was approximately $1.1 million.
- In the condemnation valuation phase, the owner presented appraisal proof supporting a substantially higher market value than the figure used in the tax review matter.
- The City offered the owner’s prior sworn tax-review statement as evidence to challenge the owner’s higher valuation claim in the condemnation case.
- The court admitted the statement but relied mainly on the broader valuation record to set compensation at approximately $2.4 million.

## Issues

1. Whether a property owner’s prior sworn statement of value, made in a tax-assessment reduction proceeding, is admissible against the owner in a later condemnation valuation proceeding.
2. If admissible, how much weight the court should give that prior tax-review valuation when determining fair market value and just compensation.

## Decision

- The court held that the owner’s prior sworn statement valuing the property at about $1.1 million was admissible in the condemnation proceeding as an admission by the owner.
- The court ruled that the prior statement was not binding and should receive limited weight when considered alongside the rest of the valuation proof.
- Based largely on other evidence of market value presented in the condemnation proceeding, the court fixed just compensation for the parcel at approximately $2.4 million.

## Legal Principles

- A party’s own prior statement of property value, including a sworn statement made in a tax review proceeding, is admissible in a condemnation case as an admission.
- The fact that the statement was made in a tax-assessment context (where an owner may state a lower value to reduce taxes) affects credibility and weight, not admissibility.
- Just compensation is determined by fair market value at the time of the taking and must be set from all competent evidence; a prior owner valuation is probative but not conclusive.

## Conclusion

In the Lincoln Square Slum Clearance Project condemnation, the court allowed the City to introduce the owner’s earlier sworn tax-review valuation as an admission, but treated it as only one item of proof and gave it little weight; relying chiefly on other valuation evidence, the court awarded just compensation of roughly $2.4 million.


In re City of New York (Lincoln Square Slum Clearance Project), 194 N.Y.S.2d 259 (1959)