RALEIGH, N.C. (CN) - The North Carolina Court of Appeals on Tuesday dismissed a request for compensation from the estates of three people who had been involuntarily sterilized by the state.
The Eugenics Board of North Carolina forcibly sterilized Mary Lucille Hughes, Kay Frances Redmond and Tommie Junior Smith, under public laws dating to the 1930s.
The Eugenics Board of North Carolina sterilized more than 7,500 people from 1933 to 1977, when the General Assembly repealed the laws authorizing it.
In 2013 the General Assembly enacted the Eugenics Asexualization and Sterilization Compensation Program to compensate such victims.
To be eligible for a portion of the $10 million fund, victims must have been alive on June 30, 2013, but Hughes, Redmond and Smith all died between 1996 and 2010.
Representing their estates, attorney Elizabeth Haddix claimed that the deadline was too restrictive, and violated the state and federal constitutions.
The Court of Appeals said that's for the Superior Court of Wake County to decide, and remanded.
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