Capital Outdoor Advertising, Inc. v. City of Raleigh
Supreme Court of North Carolina
431 S.E.2d 763 (N.C. 1993)
Raleigh (defendant) enacted a billboard-amortization ordinance in 1983 requiring certain oversized billboards to be removed by April 24, 1989, after holding two years of meetings attended by billboard-industry representatives; billboard companies including Capital Outdoor Advertising (plaintiffs) waited until April 12, 1989 — just twelve days before the removal deadline — to sue, claiming the ordinance was an uncompensated regulatory taking and exceeded the city's police power. The trial court dismissed the suit as time-barred under a nine-month statute of limitations, finding the claim accrued when the ordinance passed in 1983; the court of appeals reversed, finding the claim didn't accrue until the amortization period expired in 1989, and Raleigh appealed.
Whether a legal challenge to a municipal billboard-amortization ordinance accrues, for statute-of-limitations purposes, at the time the ordinance is enacted or at the later time its removal deadline expires.