North Carolina Lawyers Weekly

Civil Practice March 9, 2017

Civil Practice – Statute of Repose – Tort/Negligence – Schools & School Boards

Doe v. Catawba College (Lawyers Weekly No. 012-047-17, 8 pp.) (McCullough, J.) Appealed from Mecklenburg County Superior Court (James W. Morgan, J.) N.C. App. Unpub. Holding: Where plaintiff filed his […]

Civil Practice September 14, 2012

Court states the obvious: Get it in writing

Long before their quibble over a fee split required the attention of the Court of Appeals, Donny Dunn and Hank Dart had worked well together. After the 2003 explosion at the West Pharmaceutical Plant in Kinston, the two joined forces to represent plaintiffs in the ensuing class action, splitting the fees as agreed in a pre-arranged agreement.

Civil Practice September 14, 2012

Mishandled art costs Charlotte gallery $80K

Ben Long, the painter known for his frescoes in churches and building lobbies, including the three-panel piece inside the Bank of America Corporate Center in Charlotte, thought he had a friend in Knox Bridges. The two met while working at Montreat College more than a decade ago, where Long had been painting a fresco and Bridges was raising funds for the school.

Civil Practice September 14, 2012

Lesson learned: Make covenants clear

A restrictive covenant prohibiting the use of lots for business or commercial purposes is ambiguous when applied to owners entering into short-term vacation rentals of their property, a unanimous panel of the Court of Appeals ruled on September 4 in Russell v. Donaldson.

Civil Practice September 7, 2012

A haunted case

Like many, Academy Award-winning filmmaker and former detective Errol Morris has been riveted by the Jeffrey MacDonald investigation and trial – which he describes as an “utter and complete mess.” His new book, A Wilderness of Error, published last week, is the culmination of his own digging through evidence and interviewing witnesses.

Civil Practice August 31, 2012

Jury awards $4.2M verdict in stolen IP claim

Forensic evidence, source code, plenty of techie expert testimony, and a jury verdict. Must be the Apple v. Samsung trial, right? Not quite – this one played out on a smaller scale in federal court in Charlotte over the summer, but the premise was the same.

Civil Practice August 31, 2012

Just look up

It’s not every day that attorneys take a road trip to the nation’s highest court to argue about bare buttocks. But that’s what Brooks Pierce attorneys Wade Hargrove, Mark Prak, David Kushner and Julia Ambrose did earlier this year in FCC v. Fox, the latest Supreme Court case to address the Federal Communications Commission’s ongoing regulation of indecent programming.

Civil Practice August 24, 2012

Friends in high places

North Carolina state treasurer Janet Cowell hopes to salvage something out of her office’s spectacularly bad bet on Facebook stock: She wants to be the lead plaintiff among all other Facebook investors who say the company misled them about its financial health just before the company’s initial public offering in May.

Civil Practice August 10, 2012

Death of a salesman’s overtime

In late June, as anticipation grew for a decision on the Affordable Care Act, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision of equal importance – at least to some 90,000 pharmaceutical sales representatives across the country. In a 5-4 ruling in Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., the court decided that those representatives do not qualify for overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act[...]

Civil Practice August 10, 2012

Well, give her credit for trying

After she was fired from the Guilford County Department of Social Services in 1999, Sandra Wilkins sued the agency, claiming that an increased dosage of Adderall for her attention deficit disorder had caused a drop-off in her performance and led to the firing. But the Court of Appeals found four years later that her performance didn’t decline with the new dosage; in fact, after a month on that d[...]

Civil Practice August 3, 2012

Wrong claim on wrongful computer use

Authorized access to a computer for an alleged unlawful purpose does not give rise to liability under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held on July 26, joining the Ninth Circuit in a growing split among the circuits and a possible showdown before the U.S. Supreme Court next term.

Civil Practice July 27, 2012

The strong-arm of the law

Adult video companies use the legal system to bully payments out of computer owners, but the days of easy money may be ending. Critics say the porn purveyors make more money from defendants than they’d ever make on their movies. Attorneys believe the companies are gaming the system. One federal judge called the scheme a “shakedown,” while another referred to it as “extortion.”