This Court originally denied petitioners' motion to dismiss, without opinion, by order entered 11 February 1998. We have since reconsidered that ruling and now dismiss intervenors' appeal. Specifically, petitioners argue that because intervenors did not act to prevent the Town Council from issuing the permit in compliance with the superior court's mandate, the questions raised in intervenors' appeal are moot. Before we explain our agreement with petitioners, however, we must clarify what the intervenors should have done to prevent their appeal from becoming moot. Petitioners suggest that following the entry of the superior court's order, intervenors should have obtained a stay under Rule 62 of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure.
Intervenors concede that they never obtained a stay.
Unless otherwise ordered by the court, an interlocutory or final judgment in an action for an injunction or in a receivership shall not be stayed during the period after its entry and until an appeal is taken or during the pendency of an appeal. Petitioners did not seek an injunction from the superior court. They sought to have the superior court review, in the nature of certiorari, the Town Council's decision to deny the special use permit, pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. When a superior court's jurisdiction is invoked under G.S. 160A-381, the superior court judge sits as an appellate court, not a trial court. In this case, because the superior court was sitting as an appellate court in review of a quasi-judicial decision by the Town Council, it had no authority to grant an injunction.