North Carolina Lawyers Weekly

When the legislature closed up shop July 24, only 558 bills had been ratified – about 20 percent of the 2,798 bills up for consideration and the lowest percentage in the last three regular sessions. But the session brought some ...

A Charlotte husband’s separate interest in a $35 million company was limited to the $2 million he used to form it, the Court of Appeals ruled Aug. 17. The reason: he failed to show how much of the company’s growth ...

A plaintiff who diligently filed for an extension of time to file a complaint, but failed to get the order and summons served on the defendant, has had her suit dismissed in a Sept. 7 opinion of the Court of ...

A pedestrian who was injured when she stepped out of a supermarket did not have a duty to yield to the pickup truck that hit her, the Court of Appeals ruled Oct. 5. The decision clarifies the status of roads ...

Elizabeth City attorney Keith Teague was one of the first lawyers in the state to get a copy of the Supreme Court’s latest decisions dealing with emotional distress claims. He received a fax copy 30 minutes before he was scheduled ...

A group of Chapel Hill homeowners have had their case tossed out of court because their attorney’s brief did not match the form called for in the appellate rules. The homeowners were appealing an adverse zoning decision. Last week, a ...

Sweeping rules changes to cut the civil case backlog have been drafted in two of the state’s three U.S. District courts. “It’s a new ball game in a lot of ways,” says Joseph P. Creekmore, clerk for the U.S. Middle ...

Bare-boned allegations of OSHA violations and missing safety guards on a textile machine ‘ even if true ‘ do not by themselves give an injured worker the right to sue his employer or co-employees, the Supreme Court ruled in a ...

A wrongful death plaintiff who failed to raise the doctrine of last clear chance at a pre-trial conference is barred from asserting it later at trial, the N.C. Court of Appeals ruled Feb. 2. This is so even though the ...

The workers’ compensation crisis may have finally hit North Carolina. Insurance companies and industry groups say the workers’ compensation system is on the verge of collapse ‘ a victim of rising medical costs, unnecessary litigation and fraud. But some lawyers ...