Woman, 86, fights county on land deal

Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2005 | 9:10 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- An 86-year old Las Vegas woman is asking the Nevada Supreme Court to grant her a new trial, but if her appeal is rejected, she will have to repay Clark County $1.9 million.

Mary Bartsas is trying to get $7 million that she says the county owes her for property that it condemned.

Oral arguments are to be heard this afternoon regarding the county's January 2000 condemnation of three acres of a 40-acre parcel belonging to Bartsas.

The property was needed for construction of the Las Vegas Beltway, county officials said about the land at the southwest corner of Centennial Parkway and Durango Drive, near a planned U.S. 95 interchange.

Clark County, based on an appraisal by now-retired Kendal Stewart, deposited $2.8 million with the court before the start of a trial. Bartsas withdrew the money, but still retained the right to seek additional funds during the trial.

Ronald Whitlatch, the appraiser retained by Bartsas, valued the three acres at $1.3 million and said that $7.7 million was due Bartsas because of the damage to her other property. Bartsas claimed access to her remaining property was limited and it was downgraded from primary commercial to secondary commercial development. After Stewart retired, so the county hired Tim Morse to perform a second appraisal.

He set the value at $987,000 and did not find any severance damages.

Morse recently has been at the center of a controversy involving sales of airport land. At the county's request, the state Real Estate Division is investigating whether he should be punished for his appraisals of airport land that helped a land broker make millions of dollars in profit from that land.

In Bartsas' case, a District Court jury awarded her $987,000 but no money for her claim that the value of the rest of her property was decreased by the condemnation.

After the verdict, District Judge Mark Denton granted the county's motion to order Bartsas to refund $1.9 million plus interest. And he ordered her to pay $52,000 in litigation costs.

James J. Leavitt, the Las Vegas lawyer who wrote the opening brief to the Supreme Court in support of Bartsas, argued that Denton made numerous errors at the trial that merited a new trial.

The main issue is severance damages or money that should be paid for damage to the remaining property, Leavitt said.

Leavitt said there were comments at the trial that the elderly woman was a "wealthy real estate speculator," that the jurors would be the ones helping to foot the bill if the $7 million in severance damages were awarded, and that there was evidence to show alleged benefits to the remaining Bartsas property.

All of that is "irrelevant and prejudicial," so a new trial is warranted, he said.

But Michael Mansfield, an attorney for the county, said the appraisal for Bartsas was "riddled with inconsistencies, poor information and deeply flawed analysis."

The highway project "did not significantly impact access" to Bartsas' remaining property, Mansfield said. He argued the county was not precluded from presenting the later appraisal that pegged the property at $987,000 rather than the first county audit of $2.8 million.

Mansfield said Bartsas "withdrew the funds ($2.8 million) at her peril and thus was responsible to refund the excess."

He said Bartsas' lawyers had not previously objected to the evidence or statements made at trial that they are now claiming are errors.

Cy Ryan can be reached at (775) 687-5032 or at cy@lasvegassun.com.