Civil Practice – Abatement — Prior Pending Action — Administrative — Environmental — Contract — Settlement Enforcement

State ex rel. Ross v. State Properties, LLC. (Lawyers Weekly No. 09-16-0178, 6 pp.) (Sanford L. Steelman Jr., J.) Appealed from Wake County Superior Court. (A. Leon Stanback Jr., J.) N.C. App. Unpub.
Holding: A state agency filed a second action to enforce a settlement agreement with the defendant-landowner while the agency’s first such action was still pending. The previously filed action abated this second action.
We reverse the trial court’s denial of defendant’s motion to dismiss.
The parties in the first action are identical to the parties in this action. Both actions seek to enforce a Jan. 28, 2004, settlement agreement between the parties.
In both cases, the plaintiff-agency seeks monetary penalties against defendant, and both cases raise the legal issues of whether the settlement agreement is enforceable through stipulated penalties and whether the affirmative defenses of impossibility and estoppel bar the agency’s claims.
Although the penalties sought in the first action are different than those sought by plaintiff in this action, N.C. case law makes clear that this difference does not preclude abatement.
Because the parties, the subject matter, the causes of action, and the relief requested are substantially identical, the first action abates this action.
Reversed.