N.C. Ct. App.: Harrington v. Laney — Quiet Title Claim Barred by Statute of Limitations

Summary:

In Harrington v. Laney (COA24-1071, filed October 15, 2025), Chief Judge Dillon, joined by Judges Murry and Freeman, reversed a Superior Court verdict that had invalidated a deed executed under a power of attorney, holding instead that the plaintiff’s claims were barred by the statute of limitations.

Facts and Background:

The dispute centered on a family property in Anson County. In June 2016, the plaintiff’s elderly parents executed a power of attorney (“POA”) naming defendant Curtis Laney and a now-deceased co-agent. Acting under that POA, Laney conveyed the parents’ property to himself, later reconveyed it to the plaintiff’s mother, and then executed a 2018 deed giving himself and his wife a remainder interest. When the mother died in 2019, the Laneys became owners of the property.

The plaintiff, Robert Harrington, waited until September 2022 to bring a quiet title action, arguing that the POA was void because his mother lacked capacity and the document had been fraudulently obtained. The jury agreed and voided the deeds, but the Court of Appeals reversed.

Holding and Reasoning:

The Court agreed with the defendants that the applicable limitations period was three years under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-52(1) or (9), since the claim “at its core” challenged the validity of a contract—the 2016 POA. Whether the cause of action accrued in 2016 (when the POA was executed) or in 2019 (when title passed under the challenged deed), Harrington filed too late by 2022.

The Court rejected arguments that longer limitation periods under §§ 1-38 (possession under color of title) or 1-47 (validity of deeds) applied, emphasizing that this was not a title-possession or deed-recording issue but a contract dispute over authority.

Harrington also sought to invoke the “survivor statute,” § 1-22, to toll the limitations period based on his mother’s incapacity before death and his own alleged incapacity thereafter. The Court noted that any representative of his mother’s estate—not just her heir—could have timely brought a claim within one year after her death, but no one did so by June 2020. The suit filed in 2022 was therefore barred.

Because the case was resolved on statute-of-limitations grounds, the Court did not reach the remaining issues regarding jury instructions or laches.

Commentary:

This decision is a textbook example of how North Carolina appellate courts treat disputes over powers of attorney as contract-based actions for purposes of the statute of limitations. Following O’Neal v. O’Neal, 254 N.C. App. 309 (2017), the Court emphasized there is “little reason to draw distinctions between powers of attorney and contracts.” That framing makes the three-year statute under § 1-52(1) controlling, even when the plaintiff’s complaint is styled as one to “quiet title.”

For practitioners, Harrington reinforces two lessons:

1. Timing is everything — Claims attacking a power of attorney or self-dealing conveyances must be filed within three years of execution (or at most within one year after the principal’s death under § 1-22). Waiting to challenge such transactions until after probate or subsequent conveyances will likely be fatal.

2. Quiet title ≠ limitless claim — Even though actions under N.C.G.S. § 41-10 have no specific statute of limitations, the underlying theory controls. Where the “quiet title” claim depends on attacking an earlier contract, courts will apply the contract limitations period.

While Harrington is an unpublished opinion, it is a useful reminder that North Carolina limitation periods can sharply constrain later challenges to allegedly fraudulent or self-interested conveyances, even within families.

Had this dispute instead arisen in bankruptcy (for example, if Harrington had later filed Chapter 7 or 13 and sought to recover the property for the estate), the trustee would likely face the same three-year state-law bar unless federal avoidance statutes (such as § 548 or § 544(b)) extended the lookback period.

Practice Pointer: When reviewing prepetition transfers involving family powers of attorney, counsel should determine when the challenged transaction occurred and whether any surviving representative acted within the § 1-22 one-year window. Otherwise, even the most egregious self-dealing may be time-barred.