Before the Court en banc (Chief Justice Pickering recused). Opinion by Justice Gibbons.
In this opinion, the Court held that a jury instruction based on an overbroad reading of its decision in City of North Las Vegas v. Robinson, 122 Nev. 527, 134 P.3d 705 (2006) was not prejudicial because a separate jury instruction remedied the error. The action at district court was a jury trial regarding the just compensation for a taking by Appellant of a portion of Respondent's property for a utility easement. The jury was instructed to disregard the existence of a setback along the northernmost 20 feet of the subject property for purposes of calculating the value of the property. Appellant objected to this instruction, but the district court overruled the objection based on Respondent's argument that the Robinson decision, which addressed the applicability of a property's highest and best use in the calculation of value, was broad enough to encompass the instruction. The Court held that the instruction to disregard the setback was beyond the scope of Robinson because setbacks are appropriate for a jury to consider in discounting value. However, the Court also held that a separate, more thorough instruction alleviated the error by correctly interpreting Robinson, and therefore that there was no prejudice to Appellant caused by the erroneous instruction. Additionally, the jury's verdict was supported by substantial evidence. The Court offered a sample jury instruction for cases where a jury must determine just compensation for a property burdened by a use restriction without disregarding its highest and best use. A second issue before the Court was whether the district court abused its discretion by allowing testimony from Respondent's expert. The Court determined that the alleged weaknesses in the expert report went to the weight of the evidence and not its admissibility. The Court observed that Appellant had ample opportunity to address these weaknesses and therefore that the district court did not abuse its discretion by allowing the testimony. Appellant's argument that the expert's analysis violated NRS 50.285 was likewise unfounded because the statute does not define the type of documentation or data upon which an expert may rely. Affirmed. (Mark W. Dunagan, Associate in the Reno office of McDonald Carano Wilson LLP.)
