The enactment of the Residential Rental Agreements Act of 1977, the Landlord Eviction Remedies Act of 1981, and the Retaliatory Eviction Act of 1979 provided expanded rights and protections for residential tenants. As a result, all residential tenants have the right to fit and habitable housing, and they cannot be evicted without the judicial process of summary ejectment. The law also protects tenants from eviction in retaliation for lawfully asserting their rights to fit and habitable housing, but that law is subject to a number of exceptions. The North Carolina appellate courts have issued recent opinions that address these tenants’ rights statutes. This post will explore these statutes by reviewing the details of this recent precedent.

In abuse, neglect, dependency (A/N/D) and termination of parental rights (TPR) proceedings, the child who is the subject of the action is a party. G.S. 7B-401.1(f); -601; -1104. In most actions, the child is represented by a guardian ad litem (GAL). See G.S. 7B-601; -1108(b)–(c). This post provides an overview of the rights and duties of the child’s GAL, which are addressed in statute and case law. Continue Reading

Does the law regarding motor vehicle seizure when a person is charged with felony speeding to elude arrest or an offense involving impaired driving apply to juveniles? If the case is subject to original juvenile jurisdiction, the answer is no. Read on to understand why that is and what to do if a seizure order is improperly issued. Continue Reading

Most people familiar with the law relating to child custody are familiar with the definition of the ‘home state’ of a child and the importance of the home state when determining whether a state has subject matter jurisdiction to make a child custody determination.

G.S. 50A-102(7) states:

“Home state” means the state in which a child lived with a parent or a person acting as a parent for at least six consecutive months immediately before the commencement of a child-custody proceeding. … A period of temporary absence of any of the mentioned persons is part of that period.” [emphasis added]

When an 11-year-old child has lived in North Carolina with her parents for her entire life but traveled to Myrtle Beach with her mother for a two-week beach vacation, it seems obvious that North Carolina will continue to be the home state of the child when mother files a custody action in North Carolina one month after she and the child return from the beach trip. The two-week period when the child was not in North Carolina clearly was a temporary absence, meaning the two weeks out of the state is “part of” the six months immediately before the commencement of the child-custody proceeding.

I wrote recently about substantial upcoming changes to North Carolina’s child fatality prevention system. As part of those systemic changes in S.L. 2023-124, the General Assembly is establishing new Citizen Review Panels to evaluate the extent to which the state is fulfilling its child protection responsibilities in accordance with federal child welfare laws. This change aligns North Carolina with requirements in the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA), the core federal legislation that authorizes funding to states for preventing and responding to child abuse and neglect. This post will discuss the structure and authority of these new citizen panels, as well as how their work intersects with local teams engaged in multidisciplinary child fatality reviews.