EMINENT DOMAIN PRACTICE GROUP

Southern Nevada continues to grow at an astounding rate. As state and local governments and utilities try to keep pace, inevitable conflicts arise between the government's planning, infrastructure, and land use/zoning functions and the interests of private land and water owners. The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that private property shall not be taken for public use without the payment of just compensation. The protections of the United States and Nevada Constitutions are implicated by both inverse condemnation claims (those brought by landowners against the government when the government's land use regulations or other conduct is so oppressive that the landowner is deprived of the benefits of ownership or the government seeks to exact an unrelated or disproportional property interest when the landowner seeks permission to construct a certain building or get permission to perform a certain business on his property) and direct eminent domain proceedings (when the government needs private property to construct road, utilities, and other infrastructure that benefits the public at large and files legal action against the owner to take the property.)