Constitutional – Separation of Powers Principles – SAFE Child Act

The SAFE Child Act, like any other act of the General Assembly, cannot overturn a final judgment entered by the judicial branch.

We affirmed the decision of the Court of Appeals.

In 2019, the General Assembly passed the SAFE Child Act, which revived claims for child sexual abuse that were time-barred by the statute of limitations. Plaintiffs are alleged victims of child sexual abuse in the 1970s and 1980s. The SAFE Child Act would have revived plaintiffs’ time-barred claims except for one glaring problem— plaintiffs already brought those claims over a decade ago and courts already entered final judgments dismissing those claims with prejudice because they were time-barred. Plaintiffs contended that the SAFE Child Act overrides those earlier judgments and permits them to bring their newly revived claims. The General Assembly does not have the power to set aside a final judgment of the judicial branch. Had plaintiffs returned to the court that entered the judgments and sought relief based on the SAFE Child Act, that court may have exercised its discretion to set aside the judgments in the interests of justice. But plaintiffs chose instead to file entirely new lawsuits and insist that the General Assembly can override final judgments of the judicial branch because “it is not up to the courts to search for some implied constraint on legislative power.” We affirmed the decisions of the Court of Appeals, which properly concluded that the SAFE Child Act, like any other act of the General Assembly, cannot overturn a final judgment entered by the judicial branch.

In 2011, plaintiffs sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte in separate actions, alleging they were sexually abused by Catholic priests many decades ago. In both cases, the trial court granted summary judgment for the Diocese, finding that the applicable statutes of limitations barred plaintiffs’ claims. One plaintiff appealed the judgment to the Court of Appeals and lost. The other did not appeal. Both of plaintiffs’ judgments became final a decade ago. In 2019, the General Assembly passed the SAFE Child Act, which included many reforms to protect children from sexual abuse. Included in the act is a provision that changed the existing statutes of limitations in a way that revived previously time-barred legal claims for child sexual abuse.

In 2020, plaintiffs filed entirely new lawsuits asserting the same child sexual abuse claims that were dismissed in the earlier final judgments. Plaintiffs took the position that by “reviving” their claims through the SAFE Child Act, the General Assembly had effectively set aside the earlier judgments and permitted plaintiffs to bring new lawsuits. The trial court dismissed both newly filed lawsuits with prejudice on the ground that the claims were barred by the res judicata effect of the earlier judgments. The Court of Appeals also held that the newly filed lawsuits were barred by the doctrine of res judicata because our court system already had entered final judgments on the same claims.

The Court of Appeals properly held that res judicata applies to the final judgments entered against plaintiffs over a decade ago. First, those judgments were an adjudication on the merits. The judgments resulted from orders granting defendant’s motions for summary judgment and dismissing plaintiffs’ claims “with prejudice.” This type of dismissal with prejudice “operates as an adjudication upon the merits” under our Rules of Civil Procedure. Likewise, the earlier judgment involved the same causes of action between the same parties. Thus, res judicata bars this second lawsuit.

The crux of plaintiffs’ appeal was not that res judicata does not apply, but that it cannot apply because the General Assembly overrode it through the SAFE Child Act. Article IV of the North Carolina Constitution vests the “judicial power” exclusively in the courts and further states that the “General Assembly shall have no power to deprive the judicial department of any power or jurisdiction that rightfully pertains to it as a co-ordinate department of the government.” The Separation of Powers Clause further provides the “legislative, executive, and supreme judicial powers of the State government shall be forever separate and distinct from each other.” It is therefore beyond question that the General Assembly cannot wield the judicial power of this state. The power to enter judgments is the core judicial power of the courts. This judicial power extends not only to entering judgments but also to providing relief from them. Simply put, under the North Carolina Constitution, only the judicial branch may set aside a judgment that it previously entered. This principle applies regardless of the reason that a court entered the final judgment on the merits.

The Court of Appeals correctly held that res judicata bars plaintiffs’ new lawsuits because the SAFE Child Act, like any other act of the legislative branch, cannot set aside a final judgment of the judicial branch.

Affirmed.

Doe v. Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte (Lawyers’ Weekly No. 010-110-25, 10 pp.) (Richard Dietz, J.) Wilder Pantazis Law Group, PLLC, by Sam McGee, for plaintiff-appellants; Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP, by Joshua D. Davey, for defendant-appellee; Jeff Jackson, Attorney General, by Ryan Y. Park, Solicitor General, Nicholas S. Brod, Deputy Solicitor General, and Orlando L. Rodriguez, Special Deputy Attorney General, for the State, amicus curiae. North Carolina Supreme Court