Most Important Opinions

1. Labor & Employment – Public Employees — Settlement Agreement – Breach of Contract Claim – Damages – Job Reclassification 

   Pickney v. Department of Transportation Even though the parties’ settlement agreement provided that plaintiff could “request a job reallocation or pay grade increase” and that defendant would “cooperate with such a request,” the settlement agreement did not provide plaintiff with any guarantee that he would actually receive a job reallocation or pay grade increase upon request. Even if plaintiff proved that defendant breached the settlement agreement by failing to cooperate with his request for a second job reallocation, plaintiff’s evidence provided no basis upon which the trial court could have properly calculated damages.

2. Domestic Relations – Separation Agreement – Oral – Unenforceable 

   Marks v. Marks Where the parties were separated and intended to live separate and apart forever when they entered into an oral contract, and where the contract involves payments for spousal support and from the sale of marital or divisible property, the contract was governed by G.S. § 52-10.1. Because the contract was not in writing and acknowledged by both parties before a certifying officer as defined in G.S. § 52-10(b), it was unenforceable.

3. Workers’ Compensation – Occupational Disease – Increased Risk – Insufficient Evidence – RADS – Bleach Exposure 

   Harrell v. Palace Entertainment Holdings, Inc. It was up to the Industrial Commission to decide how much weight to give plaintiff’s testimony about his exposure to sodium hypochlorite; moreover, plaintiff failed to present any expert testimony that his single exposure to bleach placed him at an increased risk of developing reactive airways dysfunction syndrome.

4. Contract – Good Faith – Business Expansion – Economic Downturn – Re-Zoning & Building Permit 

   Area Storage, Inc. v. Old Oak Estates Community Association Pursuant to the parties’ contract, if the plaintiff-storage business got its land re-zoned to commercial and obtained a building permit, then plaintiff would deed a 50-foot buffer to defendant -- its neighbor – install a buffer of vegetation, and pay defendant $20,000. Although plaintiff placed the deed and $30,000 in escrow and had the property re-zoned, it decided not to seek a building permit because of an economic downturn. Plaintiff’s failure to seek a building permit was not a breach of its duty of good faith.