On the Civil Side

A UNC School of Government Blog

https://civil.sog.unc.edu

  • Ordering Law Enforcement Officers to Enforce a Child Custody Order

    This entry was contributed by Cheryl Howell on January 15, 2016 at 5:00 am and is filed under Family Law.

    It is not uncommon to see custody orders – both orders entered by North Carolina courts and orders from other states – containing language such as “Law enforcement officers shall assist in the enforcement of this custody order,” or “Law enforcement shall pick up the minor child and deliver the child to the custodial parent.” While most judges intentionally enter such orders only when there is reason to be concerned for the safety of the children, these provisions often are included as standard provisions in custody order templates throughout North Carolina and are extremely common in form orders used in other states.

     

    Must a law enforcement officer comply with such a provision in an order from another state? Does a North Carolina judge have the authority to order law enforcement involvement? Case law and statutes indicate that authority for law enforcement involvement is limited.

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  • Dormant or Discontinued? Service Deadlines and the Statute of Limitations

    This entry was contributed by Ann Anderson on January 13, 2016 at 5:00 am and is filed under Civil Practice, Civil Procedure-General.

    A plaintiff facing a soon-to-expire limitations period may feel a rush of relief when the complaint is clocked in to the clerk’s office on time and the summons is ready for service. Even after filing, though, it’s too early to stop watching the clock. Failing to observe Rule 4’s time limits on service can also create a statute of limitations problem.

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  • The Role of Fault in Alimony

    This entry was contributed by Cheryl Howell on January 8, 2016 at 5:00 am and is filed under Family Law.

    Long ago and far away, title and control of all of a woman’s property vested in her husband upon marriage. In exchange, the husband became responsible for support of the wife for the remainder of her life. The support obligation continued even through divorce, unless the bad conduct of the wife was the reason for the divorce.

    This is the common law foundation linking misconduct –fault – to alimony. Over time, the law came to require that any woman seeking alimony first prove that her husband’s conduct rather than her own was the cause of the marital breakup.

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  • The New Law Addressing Child Maltreatment in Child Care Facilities: It’s the State’s Responsibility

    This entry was contributed by Sara DePasquale on January 6, 2016 at 9:54 am and is filed under Child Welfare Law.

    *For more information about this new law, see the following supplemental book chapter, Suspected Child Maltreatment Occurring in a Child Care Facility, to the book, Reporting Child Abuse and Neglect in North Carolina. Both the supplemental chapter and book are available electronically and for free.

    It seems fitting that the first blog post of the 2016 calendar year addresses a new law that became effective on January 1st.  S.L. 2015-123 is “An Act to Transition Abuse and Neglect Investigations in Child Care Facilities to the Division of Child Development and Early Education [DCDEE] within the Department of Health and Human Services” (DHHS). In a nutshell, county child welfare agencies (county departments) retain responsibility for screening and assessing reports of suspected child abuse, neglect, and dependency by a parent, guardian, custodian, or caretaker but are no longer responsible for screening and assessing reports of suspected abuse and neglect of a child in a child care facility. As a result, petitions filed in district court by a county department that allege a child has been abused or neglected will no longer be based on circumstances created in a child care facility. Instead, the DCDEE has assumed responsibility for investigating suspected child maltreatment occurring in a child care facility. These investigations are a component of NCDEE’s licensure procedures and requirements. S.L. 2015-123 sets forth the new process in Article 7 of G.S. Chapter 110.

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  • Return of Firearms After a DVPO

    This entry was contributed by Cheryl Howell on December 18, 2015 at 5:00 am and is filed under Domestic Violence, Family Law.

    In a recent post, I wrote about requiring surrender of firearms in a DVPO. The court of appeals issued on opinion on Tuesday this week discussing when the court can order return of those firearms. In Underwood v. Hudson, the court reversed a trial court order denying return of weapons after the appellate court concluded defendant was not subject to the lifetime ban on possession which arises when a person is convicted of a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence.”

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  • Juvenile Emancipations

    This entry was contributed by Sara DePasquale on December 16, 2015 at 11:12 am and is filed under Juvenile Law.

    In North Carolina, a 16 or 17 year old who has resided in the same North Carolina county for six months may petition the district court for an emancipation from his or her parents, guardian, or custodian.  According to statistics from the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC), there have been 986 emancipation filings between fiscal year 2007-2008 and 2014-2015, averaging over 120 cases a year.  Despite this number, there is a surprising lack of appellate decisions regarding juvenile emancipations. The lack of opinions has left both district courts and petitioners to figure out what the statutes require. Continue Reading

  • Reviewing Structured Settlement Sales: The Courts’ Role

    This entry was contributed by Ann Anderson on December 11, 2015 at 5:00 am and is filed under Civil Practice, Civil Procedure-General, Judicial Authority.

    “Get Cash for Your Structured Settlement Payments NOW!” “See What Your Structured Settlement Payments Can Do!” “Get the Cash You Need Now!”

    Ever see ads like these and wonder what they’re all about? If you’ve heard of structured settlements, you may know that they are a way for injured parties to receive compensation for their injuries over time—in periodic payments—rather than in an immediate lump sum. Typically funded through the purchase of annuities, these settlements promote financial stability for injured people by preventing the money from dissipating too quickly. They also are a useful way to preserve a minor’s settlement funds until after the minor reaches adulthood. The federal government encourages the use of structured settlements by allowing qualified payments to be excluded from the recipients’ taxable income.

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  • G.S. 42-3: The Landlord’s Life Preserver

    This entry was contributed by Dona Lewandowski on December 9, 2015 at 5:00 am and is filed under Small Claims Law.

    At common law a landlord confronted with a non-paying tenant had only one hope for regaining possession of rental property: a lease provision spelling out that the tenant’s default would trigger the landlord’s right to repossess the property (commonly referred to as a forfeiture clause). When the parties have agreed in advance to this consequence for failure to pay rent, an action for summary ejectment merely asks the court to enforce the agreement of the parties. The common law rule was that absent such agreement, the landlord was left to the unsatisfactory recourse of cutting his losses by terminating the lease as soon as possible and attempting to collect unpaid rent through an action for money owed — with all of the attendant problems associated with the collection of money judgments.

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  • Renewal of a DVPO

    This entry was contributed by Cheryl Howell on December 4, 2015 at 5:00 am and is filed under Domestic Violence, Family Law.

    Chapter 50B requires that all civil domestic violence protective orders be of limited duration. GS 50B-3(b). However, that statute also allows the court to extend the life of a DVPO by renewing it at the request of the aggrieved party. Is a court required to renew the DVPO when requested? Is there a limit on the number of times an order can be renewed? Can a court change the terms of the order when it is renewed?  Unfortunately, Chapter 50B provides very little guidance on these and other issues that arise regarding the renewal process.

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  • LME/MCOs and MDEs

    This entry was contributed by Meredith Smith on December 2, 2015 at 2:23 pm and is filed under Guardianship.

    What is an LME/MCO?

     It often feels like the mental health, developmental disabilities, and substance abuse (MH/DD/SA) fields and acronyms go hand in hand.  These acronyms can be confusing and intimidating to people who are not intimately familiar with this area of the law and practice.  This confusion is exacerbated by the fact that over the last few decades, there have been a number of changes to the delivery of public MH/DD/SA services in North Carolina.  One of the major changes was the creation of local management entities/managed care organizations (LME/MCOs).

    The purpose of the LME/MCO is to deliver MH/DD/SA services by using primarily state and federal resources appropriated to them by state government to authorize, pay for, manage, and monitor services provided by their network of private providers.  See Mark F. Botts, Mental Health Services, in County and Municipal Government in North Carolina Ch. 40, at 683 (Frayda S. Bluestein ed., 2014).   As of today, there are eight LME/MCOs under contract with the NC Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to provide public MH/DD/SA services in North Carolina.

    What is an MDE?

    LME/MCOs overlap with the world of incompetency and adult guardianship proceedings filed before the clerk of superior court when it comes to the preparation and assembly of multidisciplinary evaluations (MDEs).  An MDE is an important tool in an incompetency proceeding under G.S. Chapter 35A that is used to assist the court in determining: Continue Reading

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