Wolfspeed, a Durham-based silicon carbide semiconductor business, has plenty on its plate these days amid media reports of an impending bankruptcy reorganization. While such a filing would be aimed at a short(ish) judicial...more
6/2/2025
/ Business Court ,
Business Litigation ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Intellectual Property Litigation ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Popular ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Tortious Interference ,
Trade Secrets
A Durham County class action asks whether “My Chart,” a widely used portal that medical providers use to communicate with patients about test results, conditions, and treatments should more aptly be labeled “Our Chart.”...more
4/25/2025
/ Business Court ,
Business Litigation ,
Class Action ,
Damages ,
Data Privacy ,
Data Protection ,
Health Care Providers ,
Hospitals ,
Negligence ,
Patient Privacy Rights ,
Personal Information ,
PHI ,
State Privacy Laws
That’s what a patron of Northlake Mall and Northlake Commons reportedly asked in an online forum about safety concerns at these Mecklenburg County shopping venues. The plaintiff in Brown v. TM Northlake Mall, LP, 2025 NCBC...more
Ace Hardware was long advertised as “the place with the helpful hardware man,” but even well-stocked aisles of tools and DIY accessories have their limitations. In Pro-Tops, Inc. v. Yuriy Maksimenko, 2025 NCBC 4, it turned...more
“[T]ime waits for no one,” sage Rolling Stones advice from 1974, doesn’t appear in Black’s Law Dictionary or result in frequent opinion cites for Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, the keen legal observers who wrote it. But it...more
In a costly episode of Aaron Sorkin’s adage that “decisions are made by those who show up,” the majority shareholder in a pair of family-controlled oil and gas companies learned of about 850,000 reasons why attendance can be...more
Sometimes a discovery molehill turns into a mountain (of documents) quicker than you can type the word warehouse. Back in January, in North Carolina ex rel. Stein v. EIDP, Inc., the State raised a discovery dispute regarding...more
The road leading away from HCA Healthcare’s 2019 acquisition of the multi-campus Mission Health hospital system in Western North Carolina has been a bumpy ride. HCA has faced suit connected to the transaction alleging it...more
As a matter of business hygiene, North Carolina’s records inspection statute is a bit of an information ATM. But the Business Court recently cautioned that a requester still has to press the right buttons. In Extra Care, LLC...more
A member seeking to dissolve an LLC which owns a mothballed amusement park in Maggie Valley, North Carolina, didn’t have a “ghost of a chance” to close out a struggling, yet functional, company. In McClure v. Ghost Town in...more
More than 500 sequentially accessed files downloaded to a personal thumb drive, and a description in a verified complaint of the purported confidential information and trade secrets implicated, were the key components of the...more
The City of Charlotte’s Gold Line Streetcar extension, that brought the system to a 4-mile, 17-stop line, opened to the public in August 2021. But disputes about its construction (and payment for it) that stretched back to...more
It turns out there is something more difficult than the financing and development of a luxury retirement community, the long life of which spanned from its initial municipal approval in 2002, through the 2008 financial...more
When discovery goes so off the rails that a court declares a party “has stalled the progress” of a case, prejudiced its opponent and “wasted judicial resources,” there’s little doubt the sanctions sure to follow will be...more
When Blackbeard’s flagship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, was discovered off the North Carolina coast in 1996 after a decade of searching, whatever treasure might have been with it when it found a watery grave in 1718 had been...more
A party seeking to unseat a verdict by JNOV “bears a heavy burden under North Carolina law.” Only a “scintilla of evidence” is needed to support the elements of the prevailing claim. But as the Business Court reminded in...more
After a “hotly contested” four-year litigation that resulted in mutual, without prejudice dismissals, the plaintiff in Vitaform, Inc. v. Aeroflow, Inc., 2023 NCBC 76, said it would refile and try again. But first, the...more
PreGel America makes and distributes products used in the gelato, ice cream and pastry business. But it alleges a far less than sweet experience with its former CEO, who the company says approved unauthorized personal salary...more
Maybe the third time is really only the charm in Baltimore. But at least sometimes a third shot at a sufficiently pled complaint in North Carolina can still carry the day. In Trail Creek Invs., LLC v. Warren Oil Holding Co.,...more
Joshua Langley worked for Autocraft, Inc. for more than five years and rose to have wide access to its business affairs and “substantial responsibility for its overall operations.” While still employed there, he opened LB...more
If a company contracts to acquire software which it then licenses to a third party as a component of a lucrative service package, did it “sell” the software? In Value Health Solutions, Inc. v. Pharmaceutical Research...more
The Business Court recently reminded that while there is great value to showing up and seeing what might happen at mediation, the costs of a decision to avoid the process can be more easily quantified.
In Chi v. N....more
In a litigator’s nightmare, when old wooden floors creak and the house speaks in sinister tones to its owner, it’s not: “Get Out!” that the lawyer hears. It’s: “Your Responses to the Admissions are Late.” Such is the life.
...more
After a six-day jury trial including evidence of “no show” jobs, questionable “friends and family” payroll slots, and allegations of fraud and embezzlement, a Mecklenburg County jury returned a $3-million-plus verdict for the...more
An employee trading places among industry competitors allegedly provided his new employer with bidding and pricing information so critical that the receiving company’s CEO thought it was a “gold mine” it could use “to...more