The United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina issued its new Local Rules today. There isn’t a blacklined version available, but there don’t appear to be a large number of changes as far as deadlines. Many of the Western District’s deadlines were already in the seven and fourteen day periods
The Local Rules for the Eastern, Middle, and Western Districts of North Carolina are going to be amended to square up with the new time periods for various filings contained in the revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
The Revised Middle District Rules, blacklined to show the changes, are already available. So are
North Carolina’s Superior Court Judges met for their bi-annual Conference last month. There are always presentations at these conferences useful to those of us standing on the other side of the bench, and this Conference was no exception.
You can see the full list of papers and handouts from the October 2009 Conference here
It looks like there is a small problem with the impending amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.
The drafters seem to have overlooked an important point: exactly how will the Rule changes apply to deadlines which have started running before December 1st, the date on which the changes become effective?
If you
It might seem self-evident that the Business Judgment Rule applies to decisions made by the managers of a limited liability company, but if you were looking for a North Carolina case to cite on that point before last week, you wouldn’t have found one.
But now, we have Mooring Capital Fund, LLC v. Comstock North
It is “an important and longstanding characteristic of corporate law” that a shareholder is not liable for corporate 
obligations. That principle led yesterday to the Business Court’s grant of summary judgment for a parent corporation, its subsidiary’s sole shareholder, in Griffin Management Corp. v. Carolina Power and Light Co., Inc.
Plaintiff had a meter reading
The march towards paperless courts continues in North Carolina. The latest step is the elimination by the Court of Appeals of paper copies of oral argument calendars.
You remember those. They came on yellow paper and listed all the cases to be heard during a particular week and the panels hearing them. The calendars also
Judge Albert Diaz of the North Carolina Business Court was nominated today by President Obama to serve on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Senators Kay Hagan and Richard Burr both issued glowing statements about Judge Diaz and North Carolina Court of Appeals Judge Jim Wynn, who was also nominated for the federal appellate court.
There were three decisions yesterday from the Court of Appeals worth a quick mention for the business litigator (and the baseball fan).
First, Fischer Investment Capital, Inc. v. Catawba Development Corp. is a piercing the corporate veil case. And not only that, a reverse piercing the corporate veil case. In a reverse piercing case
If you are thinking of designating a case to the Business Court because the Complaint raises allegations that the corporate veil should be pierced, stop. Those types of allegations, without more, aren’t enough to invoke the mandatory jurisdiction of the Court.
There was a short order on that subject yesterday in CCE Development Corp. v.