Until recently, a single judge sitting on a panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals could tee up an issue for the Supreme Court of North Carolina simply by filing a dissenting opinion. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 7A-30(2) allowed...more
Isn’t “secure leave” wonderful? It’s the one time YOUR schedule overrides the COURT schedule. Just designate a week or two or three, at least 90 days in advance, and you are off the hook for in-court appearances....more
Parties must move for a directed verdict to preserve their right to request judgment notwithstanding the verdict (JNOV*) after an unfavorable verdict is returned. Friday’s batch of Supreme Court opinions includes a...more
Dissent-based appeals of right might stick around a little longer than we thought. The 2023 budget bill struck N.C. Gen. Stat. § 7A-30(2), which had allowed for an appeal of right to the Supreme Court whenever “there is a...more
For many moons, North Carolina was one of the few jurisdictions in which the losing party at the Court of Appeals could pursue an appeal as of right to the Supreme Court if the party managed to snag a dissenting opinion from...more
The North Carolina Supreme Court is not stingy with extensions. If a lawyer needs more time to file a brief, the Court will generally allow it. But with the Court largely caught up on its docket, you might not want to bank...more
You can hit your snooze button a little later on Tuesdays. Effective January 1, 2025, the Court of Appeals’ scheduled filing days for opinions will be the first and third Wednesday of the month, Since the Court will be...more
The Supreme Court’s Technology Department has done it again. Quietly adding even more features to the appellate courts’ electronic filings site, www.ncappellatecourts.org. The filing site has long allowed attorneys and the...more
A dissenting opinion in the Court of Appeals has long been a litigant’s Golden Ticket, at least until a recent statutory change. The mere existence of the dissent bestowed an automatic right of appeal to the Supreme Court of...more
The Supreme Court of North Carolina gets a lot of questions and filings from unrepresented litigants. Often, those folks are in the wrong court (they should be in the Court of Appeals). Other times, they’re in the right...more
On May 3, 2022, the North Carolina Court of Appeals issued a large batch of opinions. By my count, twenty-two were published and thirty were unpublished. While history may prove me wrong, none of the published opinions...more
Under Appellate Rule 10, the general rule is that appellate courts only decide issues properly raised, argued, and decided in the trial tribunal. But exceptions to this general rule exist for issues considered so fundamental...more
The recent opinion of the North Carolina Court of Appeals in M.E. v. T.J., No. COA18-1045 has more twists than a Chubby Checker look-alike contest. The opinion is long and the facts and procedure are somewhat convoluted, but...more
The week before Christmas 2020, I received word from the N.C. Supreme Court that it had denied discretionary review in a case out of Western North Carolina that my client had won in the N.C. Court of Appeals in 2018. We had...more
North Carolina General Statute § 7A-30(2) allows for an appeal as of right to the Supreme Court of North Carolina from “any decision of the Court of Appeals rendered in a case…in which there is a dissent.” Seems pretty...more
Last year, I blogged about State v. Ellis where a passing motorist gave a Highway Patrol trooper the middle-finger salute and was arrested for his trouble. A divided Court of Appeals allowed the defendant’s conviction to...more
In State v. Golder, 79PA18, filed 3 April 2020, the Supreme Court of North Carolina provided helpful guidance on a vexing issue relating to error preservation: Does a general motion to dismiss preserve for appellate review...more