When do treble damages need a passport? In a Middle District opinion Wednesday, the Court held that a foreign plaintiff may assert an unfair and deceptive trade practices claim in North Carolina under certain circumstances.
Ada Liss Group (2003) v. Sara Lee Corp. (M.D.N.C. No. 06-CV-610) involved a decade-long dispute between North Carolina’s hosiery manufacturer and
It’s not often that the Business Court is called upon to address matters of construction law. Yesterday, though, the Court held that a general contractor’s lien waiver constituted a waiver both as to the amount and the priority of the contractor’s claims.
In Wachovia Bank, N.A. v. Superior Construction Corp., Wachovia was the construction
In modern business litigation in North Carolina, it is increasingly rare to see a complaint that does not contain a claim under G.S. § 75-1.1 for unfair or deceptive trade practices. Courts that have prevented the statute from having almost unlimited application have done so by determining that particular activities are not "in or affecting
Both the North Carolina Uniform Arbitration Act and the Federal Arbitration Act are stacked in favor of the enforcement of arbitration provisions. That does not mean that a defendant’s motion to compel arbitration is a foregone conclusion, as a Business Court decision from Tuesday reminded us.
In Capps v. Blondeau, the Plaintiff inherited a significant
Discovery disputes are often fought at the margins, and the question for any attorney responding to written interrogatories is how much information is necessary to be responsive. In an order Tuesday, the Business Court disapproved of one common tactic: the generalized Rule 33(c) answer.
In case you haven’t answered interrogatories in a while, recall that Rule 33(c) allows
What should you do if your firm’s e-mail account is down and you receive no e-mails for at least four days? The Fourth Circuit says you’d better check your federal court dockets.
In a published decision released Friday, Robinson v. Wix Filtration Corp., No. 09-1167 (4th Cir. Mar. 26, 2010), the
I’m not sure we’ve ever had the opportunity to describe a Business Court opinion as "epic" before, but here we are. On Friday, in State v. Custard, the Court delivered a 70-page, 4-appendix opinion that’s the corporate governance equivalent of The Ten Commandments or Ben-Hur. 
In addition to a thorough discussion of directors’ duties under North Carolina and Delaware law, the opinion answers four previously unanswered questions posed in the Robinson on North Carolina Corporation Law treatise that occupies a prominent shelf in every North Carolina business lawyer’s library.
Custard was a breach of fiduciary duty case brought by the Commissioner of Insurance as the liquidator of Commercial Casualty Insurance Company of North Carolina ("CCIC") against three directors of CCIC. To make a long story short, CCIC focused on "artisan" liability insurance policies for small contractors and tradesmen in California. For a period of time, it also offered non-standard auto policies in North Carolina and redomesticated itself from Georgia to North Carolina in 2001, thus becoming subject to NCDOI regulation. In hindsight, CCIC set its premiums too low and wrote too many policies. As the Court tactfully phrased it, "CCIC’s growth outperformed the Company’s ability to generate policyholder surplus." It became insolvent in 2004.
Key points from Judge Tennille’s opinion include:
If you have exchanged three-page letters with opposing counsel and held a short teleconference with dueling soliloquies on the scope of discovery relevance, you probably have complied with the meet & confer requirement that is a prerequisite to filing a motion to compel under North Carolina Rule 37 and any motion or objection related to discovery
Fervent followers of the Business Court may remember the case of Wachovia Bank, N.A. v. Harbinger Capital Partners Master Fund I, L.P., which this blog has discussed before. Just over two years ago, Wachovia preemptively sued certain defendants whom it accused of trafficking in litigation and obtained an anti-lawsuit injunction against the defendants.
Valuing a closely held business is often a debate over hypothetical dollars, particularly when the company’s sole asset is unproven technology. The Business Court confronted such a situation recently in Vernon v. Cuomo.
The company in question developed a new technology with potential widespread medical application: silicone-free syringes, which would enable syringes (especially of high-priced