The N.C. Court of Appeals has issued a stay of a Forsyth County Superior Court Judge’s order directing the N.C. Department of Transportation to make payments to property owners in the path of the Winston-Salem Northern Beltway. Forsyth Superior Court Judge John O. Craig entered an order would have set in motion a procedure for the DOT to begin paying landowners who won an inverse condemnation ruling last June from the N.C. Supreme Court.

The State’s motion argued that Judge Craig’s order would require the state to “make unauthorized expenditures of public funds.”  That order requires N.C. to deposit funds equaling the estimated value of the lands allegedly taken which the property owners could withdraw at will.