North Carolina Lawyers Weekly

The district court correctly granted summary judgment to an insurance carrier on the plaintiff’s ERISA claim because its denial of benefits was reasonable under the deferential abuse of discretion standard. Background On April 15, 2013, Mark Grabowski flew from New ...

Tagged with: Benefits

The defendant-estate’s decedent tried to buy a car from the defendant-dealership on a Saturday and took conditional delivery of the car under G.S. § 20-75.1 pending credit approval; that same day, the decedent was involved in an accident that took ...

Tagged with: Auto

Even though the same rape case was the backdrop for the Hickory Police Department’s wrongful acts in 1987-1988 and again from 2003 to 2011, the acts were separate: the earlier wrongful acts involved withholding exculpatory evidence from the district attorney ...

Tagged with: Municipal

The court rejects an insurer’s interpretation of the multiple claimant exception in G.S. § § 20-279.21(b)(4) because it would limit recovery by innocent passengers depending on whether they were riding with a negligent driver or an innocent driver. We affirm ...

Tagged with: Auto

We affirm the Court of Appeals’ decision (The uncontradicted evidence shows that the defendant-insurer acknowledged liability almost immediately and merely disagreed with the plaintiff-homeowners’ unsubstantiated valuation of the loss of the contents of their home. Based on the lack of ...

Tagged with: Homeowners

A subcontractor’s insurer wrongly relied on an inapplicable policy exclusion in refusing to defend against a suit by the subcontractor’s employee, who was severely injured at a worksite. The sub’s insurer must reimburse the contractor’s insurer for the settlement amount ...

General-liability insurers could enforce their policy limits as to completed-operations and products hazard claims against the insured stemming from decades-old asbestos exposure. Background This insurance-coverage dispute involves the applicability of two insurers’ policies to past, pending, and future asbestos-related bodily ...

Where (1) defendant William Creed fell asleep at the wheel of passenger/plaintiff Theodore Creed’s car, crashed into a tree, and caused serious injuries to Theodore; (2) William’s two liability policies each paid $100,000 to Theodore; and (3) defendant Nationwide Property ...

Tagged with: UIM

Holding: We reverse the Court of Appeals’ ruling for the reasons stated in Judge Tyson’s dissent (Plaintiff’s declaratory judgment action and claim for recovery of proceeds received by defendants from a second motorist, Brandon Robinson, could not and did not ...

Tagged with: UIM

USA Trouser, S.A. de C.V. v. Williams (Lawyers Weekly No. 011-078-18, 18 pp.) (John Tyson, J.) Appealed from the Business Court (James Gale, C.J.) N.C. App. Holding: The plaintiff-trade creditor sued a trade debtor and its directors, and plaintiff obtained ...

Tagged with: No Privity