Court Opinion

ID: 9535429
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:49:24.948095+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:33:15.022311
License: Public Domain

Maupin, L,
dissenting:
I agree with the majority that the motions to intervene were timely because the settlement was not finalized. However, for the reasons stated below, I would grant extraordinary relief.
First, intervention by the state should have been refused because the October 1995 letter from the Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, in my view, constituted an unequivocal renunciation of any interest in acceptance of the Dangberg property as a state park. As a matter of law, the letter had the net effect of waiving any right to oppose any attempt by the county to negotiate a unilateral settlement.1
Second, I would grant extraordinary relief with regard to the order allowing the Estate of Glide to intervene. As conceded dur*148ing the oral argument of this matter, the estate had no claims to the personal property involved in the proposed settlement. Thus, any problems with other pieces of personal property should have been resolved in a separate suit. Further, the instrument creating the option of the state and county to acquire the property contemplates the possibility that either the state or the county, or both, could reject the museum concept outright. Accordingly, once the state renounced its interest, Douglas County was entitled to make whatever arrangement it could reach with Dangberg Holdings short of or including outright refusal of the property. The estate had no interest in the outcome of these matters.

The state relies on an affidavit prepared by the author of the letter in an attempt to create an issue of fact on its waiver of any interest in the property. The affidavit interprets the waiver as merely conditional to the county’s use of the land as a park. The terms of the letter are inconsistent with that proposition.