Supreme Court sides with landowners in Map Act ruling.

Byline: Bill Cresenzo

Landowners whose development rights were frozen under the now-defunct Map Act scored a major victory after the North Carolina Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling largely affirming a Cumberland County jury verdict that awarded hefty sums of interest and attorneys' fees to landowners whose property was frozen by the DOT in 1992.

The May 1 ruling will have wide-ranging effects on the hundreds of Map Act lawsuits that have been filed against the North Carolina Department of Transportation by landowners who are seeking compensation from the state after the Supreme Court declared the Map Act unconstitutional in 2016. Enacted in 1986, the Map Act allowed the DOT to reserve property throughout North Carolina for future road projects and prohibit property owners from developing it. The DOT has now paid out millions of dollars in settlement compensation to landowners whose properties were stuck in limbo.

The court was hearing a direct appeal of one of the first two Map Act lawsuits that were tried in court. The plaintiffs, Ted and Sarah Chappell, lived on a 2.92-acre property in Fayetteville. In 1992 and again in 2006, the DOT reserved portions of the Chappells' property for the Outer Fayetteville Loop under the Map Act. In 2014, the Chappells sued the DOT, seeking full pre-Map Act market value for their property.

Just before the case was to go to trial in 2018, the DOT tried to acquire full rights to the property under a quick-take action, but a trial judge ruled that wasn't permissible. A jury awarded the Chappells $137,247 for the 1992 taking and $6,139 for the 2006 taking, with the judge allowing pre-judgment interest at 8 percent compounded annually, for a total of $831,000. After attorneys fees' and property tax compensation, the award totaled $1.75 million.

On appeal, the DOT contended the trial court wrongly characterized the action as the outright taking of the property rather than an easement and therefore instructed the jury to consider "the project in its completed state," as if the road already had been built when calculating its worth. The DOT also argued that the mischaracterization prompted the trial court to make other erroneous rulings regarding expert testimony and that the trial court erred in adding the Chappells' discounted property taxes to the jury's award, refusing to allow the DOT to exercise its statutory quick-take rights to take the entire property on the eve of trial, and calculating the amount...