Estate of Spiegel v. Estate of Rickey

Appeal from that part of a judgment of the Supreme Court (Cannizzaro, J.), entered March 3, 2003 in Columbia County, upon a decision of the court that dismissed a counterclaim of defendant Columbia Land Conservancy, Inc.

This dispute arose out of a 1967 agreement between Mathias L. Spiegel and George W Rickey to share the cost of building a lake on Spiegel’s land in the Town of New Lebanon, Columbia County. As part of their agreement, Spiegel conveyed approximately 75 acres of property to Rickey to ensure that the latter would have access to the planned lake. Rickey’s decision many decades…