PORTLAND – The Maine Supreme Judicial Court unanimously affirmed Tuesday a decision that ordered a Levant landowner to refill a section of her property and pay fines, court and legal fees of more than $12,000 for violating the town’s land use ordinance.

The legal saga began three years ago when Laurie Mullen Seymour began excavating a gravel pit on a portion of the 140 acres she inherited from her parents.

The land is divided by the Tay Road.

The legal debate has been over the north side of the property, with Seymour contending it was part of a single deeded parcel that included land on the south side of the road. With a gravel pit already on the south side, Seymour broke ground on the north side in 2001, claiming it was an extension of the existing pit and was grandfathered under the town’s land use ordinance.

Maine District Court Judge James MacMichael disagreed when the case was heard last year in 3rd District Court in Newport. He enjoined Seymour from excavating within 150 feet of the property lines of two neighbors and the Tay Road and from removing more than 1,000 cubic yards of earth in a calendar year without planning board approval.

The state’s high court ruled Tuesday that the parcel’s use is not grandfathered because the historic use of the land on the north side of the Tay Road was corn cultivation, and the gravel pit there did not exist before 1996 when the town’s land use ordinance went into effect. The justices also ruled that Seymour failed to prove that her father had intended to dig gravel on the north parcel.

While the court was considering the case since it was argued in February, the town’s board of appeals has held a new hearing, as ordered by the Penobscot County Superior Court in Bangor. The board ruled that Seymour did not need planning board approval to dig on the north parcel, but did excavate too close to the road.

Both sides have appealed that decision to Penobscot County Superior Court

“Both sides have to analyze which issues are still hanging around after the supreme court decision,” town attorney Thomas Russell of Bangor said Tuesday. “My position is that the Law Court decided all the pending decisions.”

Efforts to reach Seymour’s attorney, Robert Miller of Old Town, for comment were unsuccessful.