The Court of Appeals found no error. The trial evidence supported an inference that Spencer knew the store and employee schedules, positioned himself for a private attack, and waited for the victims to leave. Evidence that he changed clothes, misled his girlfriend, and disposed of the weapon supported flight even though he later appeared near officers. The evidence also did not require a second-degree murder instruction.
The Court of Appeals reversed and ordered a new trial. Allowing thirteen jurors to deliberate violated both the governing statute and the North Carolina Constitution’s twelve-juror guarantee. The judge’s mixed instruction to restart but await directions to continue or begin was not the clear, unequivocal safeguard the law requires. The error was both structural in character and prejudicial, so the court did not reach the sentencing issue.
The Court of Appeals found no error. Counsel did not concede guilt to the Pender County charges; the argument attempted to connect incriminating statements to different allegations and focus the jury on the State’s burden. The on-record discussion showed Benson knowingly accepted that strategy. The court also held that the substantial evidence of guilt defeated any showing of Strickland prejudice.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of Rule 60 relief. The trial court investigated the circumstances, assessed credibility, considered the available Rule 60 grounds, and could find that the record did not establish a void judgment or extraordinary circumstances. The appellate court emphasized its deferential abuse-of-discretion review and declined to substitute its credibility judgment for the trial court’s.
The Court of Appeals reversed. Although evidence supported some findings about the witnesses’ conduct, the supported findings did not show a flagrant constitutional violation that irreparably prejudiced Cuadra’s preparation of his defense with no available remedy other than dismissal. The case was remanded for further proceedings that may include a new trial; a concurrence emphasized the availability of lesser sanctions such as a mistrial.
The published panel reversed and ordered enforcement of the agreed Michigan forum. Because the subcontract involved interstate commerce, the Federal Arbitration Act applied and preempted North Carolina’s contrary forum restriction. General equitable concerns and efficiency could not override the FAA’s command that arbitration agreements be enforced according to their terms.
The published opinion remanded for the trial court to determine whether counsel performed deficiently and, if so, whether those deficiencies deprived the mother of a fair hearing. The existing appellate record did not permit the Court of Appeals to resolve the fact-sensitive ineffective-assistance questions itself. A separate concurrence elaborated on the standards the trial court should use on remand.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed a $26,633 summary judgment for a consultant who claimed she was owed two months of “monthly retainer fees” during a sixty-day notice period in which she performed no work. Reading the contract as a whole, the court held that “retainer fee” does not mean availability payment; the early-termination clause—which conditioned payment on “work completed through the end of the notice period”—controlled. Because the consultant performed no work after termination, Fisher Consulting owed nothing. Summary judgment for the defendant was ordered on remand.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed a Domestic Violence Protective Order entered against a father who grabbed his seven-year-old son by the neck and hip and carried him to his car seat, causing the child to feel dizzy, experience difficulty breathing, and turn red in the face. A 2–1 majority held that competent evidence supported the finding of “intentionally causing bodily injury” under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 50B-1(a)(1) even absent a visible mark. The court also held that minor children have standing to seek DVPOs against parents through a Guardian ad litem. Judge Wood dissented, arguing that routine parental discipline without lasting injury cannot constitute domestic violence.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals vacated a consolidated judgment entering two counts of carrying a concealed firearm under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-269(a1) arising from discovery of two guns in a single traffic stop. Applying the rule of lenity under the Conley line of cases, the court held that § 14-269(a1)’s “any pistol or gun” language is ambiguous as to unit of prosecution, permitting only one conviction per incident. The court also vacated a twenty-four-month probationary term imposed without the specific written findings required to exceed the statutory eighteen-month cap.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals unanimously affirmed a DHC finding that attorney Mark Cummings lied to Bar investigators about compensating a paralegal, but vacated three other misconduct findings—on failure to file 1099s (no willfulness finding by the DHC), a courtroom recording device (no evidence of an actual misrepresentation), and a residency misrepresentation (prior out-of-court statement inadmissible under Rules 804(b)(5) and 803(24) because the declarant testified live at the hearing). The case was remanded for the DHC to reconsider appropriate discipline based only on the violations that survived review.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal in a railroad trespass and quiet-title action, holding that Mach 2 Investments and adjoining property owners lacked standing under the jus tertii doctrine to challenge Great Smoky Mountains Railroad’s 1996 deed from NCDOT. Even if the conveyance did not strictly follow state-lands procedures, only the State can mount that challenge—and any defect would render the deed merely voidable, not void. On remand, the trial court must address necessary parties and examine the scope of a historic “farm crossing” easement whose claimed use Mach 2 may have overburdened through subdivision.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed the invalidation of non-compete agreements barring two nurse practitioners from “engaging in the practice of Medicine” for one year within Robeson County and a 35-mile radius. Writing for the majority, Judge Griffin held the covenants overbroad in their terms despite reasonable time and geographic limits, void against public policy, and not salvageable through blue-penciling under North Carolina’s strict severance doctrine. The 2–1 decision—Chief Judge Dillon dissenting—clarifies that healthcare non-competes must track the specific work performed, not broadly prohibit all medical practice.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals vacated an order ceasing a mother’s reunification efforts because the trial court entered that order at a review hearing rather than a permanency planning hearing, holding that N.C.G.S. § 7B-906.1(d1) does not authorize courts to cease reunification at review hearings—that authority belongs exclusively to permanency planning hearings under § 7B-906.2(b)—while also cautioning that missed 30-day permanency planning hearing deadlines must be challenged by writ of mandamus, not appeal.
In a question of first impression, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held that N.C.G.S. § 31-3.3 does not permit attesting witnesses to adopt signatures written entirely by a third party: because the statute expressly allows the testator to have another sign on his behalf but omits any similar provision for witnesses, the legislature’s intent is that witnesses must physically sign the will themselves, rendering invalid a revised will whose two witness signatures were written by the notary at the witnesses’ verbal direction while the witnesses never touched the pen.
A divided North Carolina Court of Appeals held on remand that a private medical society that administered a COVID-19 vaccine to a fourteen-year-old over his objection and without parental consent was sufficiently alleged to be a state actor for a Corum constitutional claim, and that the PREP Act’s complete bar on tort remedies itself satisfies the “no adequate state remedy” element required to bring a direct claim under the North Carolina Constitution.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed a DWI/fleeing-to-elude conviction, holding that the trial court did not err under Rule 404(b) when it allowed the State to cross-examine the defendant about a prior urban police encounter that contradicted his trial testimony that he “would have pulled over” if approached in the city, and that the Rule 403 determination did not rise to an abuse of discretion despite the evidence’s limited probative value and high prejudice potential.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed convictions for secret peeping, second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, and third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor arising from hidden charging-block cameras installed in bathrooms, holding that the 1978 “intent to invade privacy” gloss from In re Banks does not apply to the elements of the current N.C.G.S. § 14-202(f) felony secret-peeping statute.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals held that the OAH lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over a TSERS member’s claim that the 2021 repeal of N.C.G.S. § 135-4(k)—which capped service-credit repurchases at five years—unconstitutionally impaired his vested contractual pension rights, because constitutionality questions are reserved for the judicial branch and fall outside the OAH’s statutory grant of authority.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals vacated a review-hearing order ceasing reunification efforts, holding that N.C.G.S. § 7B-906.2(b) reserves that power exclusively for permanency planning hearings; the trial court’s failure to schedule a permanency planning hearing within the statutory thirty-day window was an error but not prejudicial on appeal, with mandamus the proper real-time remedy.
In a first-impression decision, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held that N.C.G.S. § 31-3.3 bars attesting witnesses from having a third party write their signatures on a will, applying the expressio unius canon to the statute’s express testator proxy-signing provision and affirming summary judgment invalidating a revised will whose two witnesses never physically touched the pen.
On remand from the North Carolina Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals held that Plaintiffs’ state constitutional claims arising from an unconsented COVID-19 vaccination administered to a minor at a school-based clinic may proceed: the private medical non-profit operating the clinic was adequately alleged to be a state actor under a joint-engagement theory, and the PREP Act’s immunity over tort claims leaves no adequate state remedy, satisfying all elements of a Corum claim.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed termination of parental rights on neglect grounds as to three children removed after a nighttime car accident left two infants with traumatic brain injuries, holding that the mother’s extensive CPS history, prior criminal conviction for a child’s death, psychological diagnosis showing parenting incapacity, and continued unsafe conduct during supervised visits established the likelihood of future neglect required by N.C. Gen. Stat. § 7B-1111(a)(1).
The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed a custody modification that maintained primary physical custody with the mother during the school year and equal summer custody, holding that a trial court has broad discretion to award primary custody to one fit parent without finding the other unfit, and that findings linking communication difficulties and the children’s need for a stable school-year routine rationally supported the arrangement.