§ 80.003.Damages

An unusual damages measure paired with a strict procedural condition.

The owner of the premises is entitled to recover damages equal to the amount of payments received by or accruing to the owner of the sign from the rental, sale, lease, or other use of the sign during the period after the 30th day following receipt of the written notice and before the sign is removed or permission is obtained.

The measure is the trespasser's revenue, not the landowner's loss. That is restitutionary — the landowner recovers what the operator earned from the land, whatever the ground rent would have been.

It is the right measure for the problem. A landowner's actual loss from a billboard standing on unused land is close to nothing, so an ordinary damages rule would leave the operator profiting from the holdover with no exposure.

"Received by or accruing to" reaches revenue earned but not yet collected.

Subsection (b) makes the notice mandatory. No damages may be recovered unless the owner sends by certified mail, return receipt requested, a written demand for removal stating in detail the act constituting the trespass and the location — and the sign owner then fails to remove it or obtain permission before the 30th day after receipt.

The detail requirement is not a formality. The demand must state the act and the location, and a bare demand to remove would not satisfy it.