My last post discussed the clerk of court’s role in determining whether a case is eligible for small claims court under the terms of the chief district court judge’s order of assignment (hereinafter, OA). This post addresses what happens when things go wrong: What options do court officials have when a case turns up on the small claims calendar that does not meet the requirements for assignment to small claims court?
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Mandated Reporting of Child Abuse, Neglect, or Dependency: What’s an Attorney To Do?
You are appointed to represent a juvenile in a delinquency proceeding. The petition alleges the juvenile assaulted his stepfather. When you meet with your client, he discloses that his stepfather has been beating him for years. This time, his stepfather went after his younger sister, and your client tried to protect her. In another case, you are hired to represent a father in a child custody action. Your client tells you that he just moved out of the home, where his baby and the baby’s mother live. He discloses that the mother has a drinking problem and frequently attacks him physically when she is intoxicated, sometimes while she is holding the baby. He also tells you that he has come home from work to find the baby is in dirty diapers and crying in the crib while the mother is passed out on the couch.
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Incompetency Proceedings and the SCRA (Yes, You Read that Right)
We’ve now posted a handful of times about the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA) on this blog. In particular, we’ve posted on the SCRA’s application to non-judicial foreclosures, juvenile proceedings, and family law cases. At the risk of being told that the blog should be renamed “The SCRA and Other Civil Stuff,” I’m going to add another SCRA post to the list. In my defense, over the course of the past few months I’ve received a number of questions regarding the applicability of the SCRA to proceedings before the clerk of superior court. In particular, I’ve been asked whether the SCRA applies to incompetency proceedings filed under G.S. Chapter 35A for the purpose of obtaining a guardian for an alleged incompetent adult. Here’s how I’ve answered the questions I’ve received:
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Equitable Distribution: Can the court enter a QDRO without an ED claim?
*****Since this article was posted, the NC General Assembly amended the statute governing the division and distribution of retirement benefits and made a significant change regarding the topic of this post. For a discussion of that legislation, see post from October 30, 2019, “Equitable Distribution: Significant legislative amendments regarding retirement accounts and other forms of deferred compensation.”
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The Clerk of Court’s Role in Small Claims Cases
When a litigant presents a complaint and asks that the case be heard in small claims court, a clerk has different responsibilities than when a plaintiff wishes to file any other sort of civil case. Those responsibilities are critically important, and failure to perform them correctly can lead to additional time and effort on the part of court officials, added expense and delay for litigants, and even judgments ultimately declared void. The source of these additional duties are several little-known statutory provisions in G.S. Ch. 7A, Art. 19, governing small claims procedure.
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So someone forgot to draft that QDRO. Now what?
An equitable distribution judgment was entered 11 years ago. The order states plaintiff is entitled to a percentage of defendant’s retirement pay when defendant begins to receive it. The judgment also states that plaintiff’s counsel will draft a QDRO. Now it is time for defendant to retire but no one ever drafted a QDRO. Is there a problem? Can the court enter one now?
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Ohio v. Clark: What Does It Mean for Child Protective Services?
Last month the U.S. Supreme Court decided Ohio v. Clark, 135 S.Ct. 2173 (2015). The Court determined whether a teacher’s testimony of a child’s statements to her was barred by the Confrontation Clause. My colleague, Jessica Smith, wrote a blog post about the holding and its impact in criminal cases. But, what about the world of child protective services? Continue Reading
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Juvenile Code Reform Legislation (HB 879) Becomes Effective December 1, 2015
In a prior post, I wrote about SB 331, which proposed several changes to the delinquency subchapter of the Juvenile Code. That bill didn’t make it. Instead, it became HB 879 (enacted as S.L. 2015-58), which includes several new laws intended to either increase due process protections for juveniles, reduce further entry of juveniles in the delinquency system, or reduce juvenile confinement. Although it’s similar to the prior Senate bill, there are some important differences that you should know about before the new laws become effective on December 1, 2015. One of these laws involves a juvenile age increase, although it’s not quite the change for which “raise the age” advocates were lobbying.
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More on Voluntary Dismissals: Consequences of Inadequate Pleading
In an earlier post, I talked about some of the deficiencies in a complaint that can prevent a party from taking advantage of the statute of limitations extension in Rule 41(a). In short, if a party voluntarily dismisses without prejudice a claim for which the underlying statute of limitations has expired, and—as it turns out—the complaint was never timely served or was not properly “commenced,” the refiled action is subject to dismissal with prejudice. Last week, the Court of Appeals expanded on this point, holding that Rule 41(a)’s savings provision does not extend the statute of limitations on a claim that failed to satisfy Rule 8(a)(1)’s notice pleading rule.
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More on DVPOs: What is a ‘Dating Relationship’?
In my last post, Ex Parte DVPOs, I promised more on ex parte DVPOs. But the Court of Appeals issued an important decision this week on another aspect of Chapter 50B – the definition of ‘dating relationship’ – so I’ll come back to ex parte orders later.