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Insurance issues can come up in car accident cases in North Carolina. If your car is hit by someone who is underinsured or uninsured, or a hit and run driver, you may have to turn to your own uninsured motorist coverage. However, this means that you may have an adversarial relationship with your own insurance company. In Bacon v. Universal…
Recently, in Allmond v. Goodnight, a North Carolina appellate court considered a tragic car accident case involving a public official. The case arose when a highway patrolman was speeding through an intersection and crashed into a car driven by Sandra Allmond, who died at the scene. A child traveling with her suffered severe injuries. The administrator of the estate, who…
In Thompson v. Evergreen Baptist Church, a North Carolina appellate court considered a premises liability case involving a church. The case arose when the plaintiff, a member of a Baptist church for 34 years whose family were also lifelong members, suffered a fall at the church. Her husband was the chairman of the building and grounds committee, as well as the…
In North Carolina truck accident cases, a plaintiff may be able to hold the driver directly liable, and they may also have a claim for vicarious liability, which is an indirect form of liability, against the driver’s employer. However, vicarious liability is derivative, which means that the plaintiff can only recover damages from the employer if the employee driver is found…
In some motorcycle accident cases in North Carolina, intervening negligence by the plaintiff becomes an issue. An intervening negligent act is a new legal cause that breaks the connection between the injuries and the original cause, and therefore it becomes solely responsible for the injuries. In Pope v. Bridge Broom, Inc., a North Carolina appellate court considered a wrongful death…
In North Carolina, a plaintiff’s right to recover compensation in a personal injury or wrongful death action is barred upon a finding of contributory negligence. This means that the jury will look at whether a plaintiff’s own negligence or breach of duty was a contributing factor to an accident that causes his injuries or death. Scheffer v. Dalton is a…
In North Carolina, property owners must use reasonable care to make their property safe for lawful visitors. Whether a property owner’s actions to make the property safe are reasonable are judged against the actions of reasonably prudent people under the circumstances. There’s no duty to safeguard a lawful visitor from dangers that are either known to him or so obvious…
Slip and falls are common in retail stores, but these cases can be hard to prove in North Carolina and elsewhere. Among other things, an injured plaintiff needs to establish that the property owner breached its duty to keep the store free from hazards and that either the hazard was created by the store, the store had actual notice of…
In Blackmon v. Tri-Arc Foot Systems, a North Carolina court considered a plaintiff’s claim for damages based on negligence in designing and maintaining a parking lot. The plaintiff was age 37, working as a third shift employee for Talecris Plasma Resources. After his shift ended shortly before 8 a.m., he went to a Bojangles fast food restaurant. The restaurant had…
In some cases, an employer can be held responsible for an employee’s negligence in a motor vehicle accident case. Lewis v. Morgan involved a charter bus company run by a husband and wife. The company employed four drivers, and occasionally the husband drove buses too. Some drivers had keys to the gate where buses were parked. If a driver who…