Eminent domain case closed

It's been 13 years, but one man's battle against the city's effort to seize his Las Vegas property for the benefit of a local casino may finally be coming to a close.

And it appears justice will be served.

The story of Paul Moldon -- along with a similar tale involving the Pappas family in downtown Las Vegas -- highlights the more insidious aspects of the city's abuse of eminent domain in the 1990s under the guise of "redevelopment."

Mr. Moldon, who now lives in Washington state, owned a piece of land near the Stratosphere. The city's redevelopment agency condemned the property so the privately held Stratosphere could expand. Mr. Moldon challenged the seizure and in 2004 a jury found the land was much more valuable than the price the city had paid through eminent domain -- and that the Stratosphere owed Mr. Moldon $3.2 million.

In the meantime, however, the $725,000 that the city had insisted was "just compensation" for the property sat untouched in a trust account accruing interest. Citing a state law that allows counties to siphon off interest on dormant bank accounts, county officials transferred the interest -- some $200,000 over 10 years -- into their general fund.

Mr. Moldon sued and on Thursday the state Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling in his favor. The county improperly applied the law in seizing interest from the account, which amounted to "a taking in violation of the Fifth and 14th amendments," the justices held.

Last year, lawmakers changed the law to clearly articulate that it doesn't apply to cases such as the Moldon seizure.

Mr. Moldon says he now expects to haggle with the county over precisely how much he is owed. Let's hope not. It was his money in the first place and the amount of cash the county transferred from the account -- and any interest that might have accrued on top of those funds, also -- shouldn't be too difficult to calculate.

The county should move quickly to make Mr. Moldon whole. And Southern Nevadans can only hope that the abuses of eminent domain that were so common in Las Vegas during the 1990s are truly a relic of the past.