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RICHMOND -- The Virginia Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday in a case that could reignite the decades-old Toms Creek sewer debate in Blacksburg and set a new precedent for how annexations play out in Virginia.

At stake is how -- or whether -- local governments can be held to their agreements, even if decades have passed since they were made.

Lawyers representing the town and C. Givens Brothers LLC had 15 minutes each to summarize their cases and answer questions from the seven justices, who will decide if a lower court can enforce the 1973 annexation decree in which Blacksburg agreed to provide sewer service to residents of the Toms Creek Basin.

Givens owns land in the basin and would benefit financially if Blacksburg builds a sewer there.

In 2005, the company filed a writ of mandamus against the town in Montgomery County Circuit Court. Such writs seek to command a public official or government body to perform a duty or fulfill an agreement.

In this case, Givens wanted the circuit court to order Blacksburg Town Council to honor its promise to build a sewer system for basin residents. Blacksburg did extend sewer service to some basin subdivisions after the annexation. But some residents and developers have argued for years that the town stopped short of its agreement.

Circuit Court Judge Bobby Turk denied Givens' request, saying state law on property damage claims indicated the company should have filed its lawsuit no later than 1986, a year after the town declared it had fulfilled its annexation agreement. Givens appealed to the state Supreme Court.

In her argument Thursday, Givens attorney Darrel Tillar Mason said the company was not claiming its property was damaged. Turk's ruling should be overturned, Mason argued, because it was based on the wrong body of law. The key factor was not a statute of limitations but the Doctrine of Latches, Mason said.

Latches is a principle that allows plantiffs to postpone filing a lawsuit if there is a good reason for the delay.

The company waited to file its suit, Mason said, because the town continued to assure basin residents that a sewer system would be built -- until 2004, when town elections overthrew a pro-sewer majority and ended the most recent plans to construct a sewer.

The sewer battle and elections of three years ago continue to shape Blacksburg politics.

Several other basin landowners filed a brief in support of the Givens case. Jeanne Stosser, whose company is building the Northside Park subdivision on land owned by Givens, sat in the courtroom with Carroll Givens, a Givens principal.

Of all the appeals filed to the Supreme Court, the justices agree to hear only a small fraction, Mason said Thursday.

She and Blacksburg Town Attorney Larry Spencer agreed that the case could affect how Virginia annexations are enforced. This is the first time the court has weighed in on writs of mandamus in an annexation case, Spencer said.

If the court decides against the town, the case will go back to the circuit court.

That court would then decide whether Givens had good reason to wait more than two decades to file its suit, Spencer said.

The Supreme Court will issue its decision in early March.