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  • Update: Specific Personal Jurisdiction at the U.S. Supreme Court and the N.C. Court of Appeals

    Personal jurisdiction, as the name implies, refers to the authority of a court over a particular person. In order for a court to have authority over someone in a civil case, three things must exist: (1) effective service of process, (2) a statute allowing the exercise of personal jurisdiction in the case (G.S. 1-75.4, North Carolina’s long-arm statute, is the relevant statute in our state), and (3) compliance with the due process clause of the federal constitution. Continue Reading

  • School of Government seeks new faculty member to specialize in civil trials and contested hearings

    The UNC School of Government seeks to hire a tenure-track faculty member who will specialize in the procedural law that governs civil court actions and the practical aspects of conducting civil trials and contested hearings. Public officials, rather than degree-seeking students, are the principal audience for the School’s work. This position will be responsible for educating judicial officials (including judges, magistrates, and clerks of court), other court system actors, and state public officials on the law of North Carolina related to civil trials and contested hearings, including, for example, the Rules of Civil Procedure, the Rules of Evidence, contempt, recusal and judicial immunity, attorney fees, execution and other post-judgment process, and appellate procedure.

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  • Learning Together To “Get It Right”

    **This post was written by Elizabeth Watkins Price, Associate Director of Curriculum and Administration, The North Carolina Judicial College, UNC Chapel Hill School of Government

     

    Since its founding in 2005, the mission of the Judicial College has been to provide “education and training to judicial branch personnel to develop the abilities and values necessary to provide justice.” In the nearly four years that I have been in my role, I’ve consistently encountered a similar dedication to learning and fairness expressed by our clients: the judges, magistrates, clerks, and other court officials of North Carolina. The great news is that the individuals who make up our judiciary are working hard to do incredibly complicated and difficult jobs, and they want to “get it right.” So, when we zoom out and see that the system we’re working in has a disparate impact on different communities, it can be hard to understand how our best efforts aren’t adding up to the creation of the fair and just system we all want to be a part of.

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  • All Related Charges Are Transferred When One Felony in a Delinquency Case Is Transferred

    I continue to receive questions about transferring from juvenile to criminal superior court cases involving allegations that 16-and 17-year-olds have engaged in certain criminal conduct. Recently I’ve been asked about the transfer process for offenses committed at ages 16 and 17 in cases that involve a series of charges that include Class A – G felonies, Class H and I felonies, and misdemeanors. Because the Juvenile Code prescribes differing procedures for transferring various classes of felonies and there is no transfer process for misdemeanor offenses, confusion is understandable. The key to understanding how to handle these cases is this: Once one felony is transferred, all other related charges, regardless of offense class, are automatically brought under the jurisdiction of the superior court. Why? Continue Reading

  • 2019 Statutory Amendments to Adoption Laws

    During the 2019 legislative session, various changes were made to the laws impacting adoptions in North Carolina. Last week, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a Joint Resolution (Resolution 2020-1) adjourning the long session of the 2019 Regular Session and designating the start of the short session as April 28, 2020. This post summarizes the amendments impacting adoption proceedings that were made during the long session, all of which are currently in effect. Continue Reading

  • Juvenile Justice Changes in Federal Law

    The Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 (JJDPA) is the central federal law that establishes core requirements for state juvenile justice systems. 34 USC §111. In return for compliance with these core requirements, the statute authorizes federal funding for states to use in their juvenile justice systems. The JJDPA expired in 2007 and was recently reauthorized in the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2018. Public Law No 115-385. The reauthorized statute made several significant amendments to the JJDPA. In this blog post I will discuss three of the highlights: a new focus on evidence-based and promising programs and practices, changes in the disproportionate minority contact core requirement, and new requirements regarding identification and treatment of mental health and substance use disorders. Continue Reading

  • Domestic Violence: Recent Changes to Chapter 50B

    The North Carolina General Assembly recently made two important changes to Chapter 50B regarding civil domestic violence protective orders. S.L. 2017-92, “Domestic Violence Appeals and Modifications”, was effective October 1, 2017.

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  • A lease is a contract, but………

    In my last post, I emphasized the contractual nature of a rental agreement. My main point was that the agreement between the landlord and tenant, whether oral or written, is where a small claims magistrate begins in a summary ejectment lawsuit. Often parties wrongly assume that some aspect of their mutual commitments “goes without saying.” In fact, a summary ejectment action is at its heart a breach of contract lawsuit, and the specific terms of the contract are the starting point in determining any dispute.

    While the lease is always the beginning point, the magistrate’s analysis must often go further than just the parties’ agreement. As I’ve previously discussed, landlord-tenant law is replete with special rules, some (mostly procedural) tending to favor the landlord and some (mostly substantive) tending to favor the tenant. The US Supreme Court has pointed out that these procedural advantages and consumer protections, viewed together, work to balance the legal scales related to this unique legal relationship. Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56, 72, 92 S. Ct. 862, 873, 31 L. Ed. 2d 36 (1972). This post highlights some of the many ways consumer protection legislation affects the residential contractual agreements between landlords and tenants. The discussion that follows is limited to that sort of agreement. Continue Reading

  • Equitable Distribution: The Marital Property Presumption

    Immediately following the definition of marital property in G.S. 50-20(b)(1), the statute states “[i]t is presumed that all property acquired after the date of marriage and before the date of separation is marital property except property which is separate property under subdivision (2) of this subsection.” This presumption probably is the most important core principle of classification of property in North Carolina equitable distribution because it defines the burdens of proof. Continue Reading

  • Is it too late to seek Rule 11 sanctions?

    As every North Carolina litigator should know, Rule 11 of the Rules of Civil Procedure states that, by signing a pleading or “other paper” (motion, subpoena, etc.) related to the litigation, the attorney certifies that,

    to the best of his knowledge, information, and belief formed after reasonable inquiry it is well grounded in fact and is warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law, and that it is not interposed for any improper purpose, such as to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation.

    If an opposing party decides that the paper violates one more of these requirements—legal sufficiency, factual sufficiency, or proper purpose—that party can move the court to impose “an appropriate sanction,” which may include attorney fees and other expenses.  Rule 11 does not, however, set a time limit for filing a Rule 11 motion.  So when is it too late?  I have been asked this question (or similar ones) a few times in recent months.  The short answer, of course, is that it depends on the facts.  But  I thought I would share the parameters I have observed from reviewing the case law: Continue Reading

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