Real Property — Neighbor Disputes – Sanctions – Rule 11 Violations

Because a lawsuit challenging law that converted district court judicial elections from countywide into district-based elections was mooted when the legislature repealed the law, and the claims were not capable of repetition yet evading review, we affirm the dismissal of plaintiffs’ suit.

Plaintiff filed a pro se complaint against defendant, who owned a tract of land next to plaintiff’s property. During the litigation, the trial court entered sanctions against plaintiff. Plaintiff appealed from the denial of its motion for relief from the sanctions. Defendant moved to dismiss the appeal due to the deficiencies of plaintiff’s appellate brief violating Rule 28.

While plaintiff conceded the deficiencies of its brief, we decline to dismiss the appeal as we can ascertain the issues raised by plaintiff on appeal.

However, we affirm the entry of sanctions against plaintiff for violations of Rule 11. We affirm the trial court’s finding that plaintiff’s complaint was filed for an improper purpose, as most of the claims lacked legal and factual bases. In particular, plaintiff complained about lawful activities by defendant, such as defendant installing cameras on her own property and standing on her own porch. We also note that plaintiff had several instances of a lack of candor before the trial court, including seeking a continuance to hire an attorney and plaintiff’s “trustee” lying about her identity.

Affirmed.

Divine Purpose International v. Dellinger (Lawyers Weekly No. 012-104-22, 4 pp.) (Chris Dillon, J.) Appealed from Cleveland County Superior Court (Micah J. Sanderson, J.) J. Boyce Garland, Jr. for plaintiff; Delton W. Barnes for defendant. 2022-NCCOA-173