The Town of Edwards’ court case to add 5.3 square miles to its current borders will last nearly two months more, an attorney involved in the case said Wednesday.

In August, the town filed papers in Hinds County Chancery Court saying it would drop the yearlong effort if the west Hinds County community could pay its own legal fees and not that of 11 landowners and firms who fought the annexation.

The motion is continued until Nov. 18, said Jerry Mills, a Jackson attorney representing two of the 11 defendants, all of whom own property in the proposed annexation zone.

Maps presented in the still-active case show the town expanding by four times its current borders — growth that would reach north of Interstate 20, east to Buck Reed Road and west about a half-mile past Jones Road. About 800 people would be annexed and be subject to municipal property taxes, in addition to taxes paid to Hinds County.

The move is the town’s second attempt to grow via annexation since 2008, when an initial plan to grow south and west of Mississippi 467 was met with opposition from property owners.

Mayor R.L. Perkins has maintained a wait-and-see approach on whether the town will try a third time, referring questions to the town’s lawyers in the case.

“That decision would come from them,” Perkins said.

A telephone message and an e-mail request for comment from J. Chadwick Mask, one of two Jackson attorneys representing the town in the annexation, went unanswered Wednesday.

The town’s move to drop its latest annexation plan came a week after a three-judge panel of the Mississippi Supreme Court ruled the defendants could hire their own expert witness. Oxford-based planning consultant Bridge & Watson was retained; another Oxford consultant, Slaughter & Associates, had been hired by the town to draw the annexation plan.

Defendants named in the suit are Charles Floyd, CC Floyd Inc., Eddie Cook, Richard Mellon, Tri Agri Inc., John Chew, Port Amsterdam Farms LLC, Earnest Martin, Fant G. Fancher Jr., Dorothy Brasfield and Billy Sheffield.