Agency cites LV eminent domain case

Benjamin Grove

Monday, March 4, 2002 | 9:50 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- A Las Vegas eminent domain case made a top 10 list of the nation's most egregious examples of a government agency unfairly ousting people from their homes or businesses to make way for another private development, a nonprofit group said today.

The case involves a long-running dispute between the Pappas family of Las Vegas and the Las Vegas Downtown Redevelopment Agency. The agency seized 7,000 square feet of downtown commercial property from the family in 1993 to clear space for the Fremont Street Experience parking garage.

Lawyers at the Washington-based Institute for Justice, a private group that helps small businesses, churches and families fight eminent domain cases, said the Pappas case ranked among the worst abuses, because the city agency seized and razed the property quickly without giving the family due process.

"We felt the case really showed abuse of power to help political favorites," Dana Berliner, the institute's senior attorney, said. "Sadly, these 10 cases are just the tip of the iceberg."

Institute lawyers released their list today at the National Press Club. They announced a new initiative called the Castle Coalition, a nationwide network of activists and property owners united to fight eminent domain abuses. The institute has compiled more than 100 examples of governments that inappropriately took private property since 1998.

Government agencies of all sizes and types have power of eminent domain to take private property if the property is needed for public use projects. But governments increasingly are misinterpreting their power and taking homes and small businesses to hand them over to other larger, private interests such as large corporations, the group says. Governments will argue that a corporation -- or a parking lot -- will benefit the public.

The Pappas case caught the attention of the institute in part because District Court Judge Don Chairez in 1996 ruled that the Las Vegas agency did not have the power of eminent domain, and the case may be headed for the Nevada Supreme Court. A $4.5 million settlement with the city fell through in 2000.