Summary:   From the perspective of the North Carolina Life and Health Insurance Guaranty Association, Senate Bill 780, enacted by the 2009 General Assembly did not accomplish its basic purpose of expanding coverage to structured settlement annuity payees. We concur. An additional amendment will be required to assure that annuity payees who are residents of North Carolina have the protection of the Guaranty Association.

Summary: Although the interaction between the state employee benefits system and the workers’ compensation system has some points of friction that have been the source of litigation, as a general rule, the two systems fit together fairly neatly. This paper provides a broad overview of the benefits available to state employees from the State and discusses how the receipt of workers’ compensation benefits would affect these benefits. Finally, it discusses how the careful structuring of settlements can mitigate or avoid offsets of workers’ compensation benefits against benefits from the State.

Summary: North Carolina state employees have benefits available to them when they are entitled to workers’ compensation that must be properly evaluated in order to provide the most complete remedy. While the major components of state employee benefits and the interaction with workers’ compensation have been exhaustively documented in a paper appended to this document, the attorney’s management of the programs and benefits are complex. This paper explores some specific items to analyze and consider in the management of a state employee’s workers’ compensation case and should be read in conjunction with the larger paper.

Summary: Each year thousands of acts of violence occur in the workplace. It can occur at or outside the workplace and can range from threats and verbal abuse to physical assaults and homicide. While federal and state statutes and agency guidance help prevent workplace violence and injuries in the first place, workers like Ms. McKendall are killed or injured on the job each day. Injured workers and victims of workplace violence may need to utilize an array of remedies provided by federal statutes and state law. This paper discusses violence and injuries in the workplace, prevention, and remedies available to employers and employees.

Summary: In Diggs v. Novant Medical, Inc., 177 N.C. App. 290, 628 S.E.2d 851 (2006), the North Carolina Court of Appeals held that a hospital could be liable under apparent agency principles for the acts of an independent contractor physician. The North Carolina appellate courts have not yet addressed the related issue of whether a hospital could be vicariously liable because the non-employee physician was performing the hospital’s non-delegable duty. This paper discusses the law regarding these theories of liability in North Carolina and other jurisdictions, as well as their potential application to a range of medical negligence cases.

Summary: If Elaine had lived anywhere else in the United States, she could have brought suit against the SUV manufacturer. Thirty-three states and the District of Columbia have no statute of repose for products liability actions. Four states establish a presumptive ten- or twelve-year statute of repose that can be rebutted by evidence that the “useful safe life” of the product is longer or shorter. Two states establish a rebuttable presumption of no negligence if the product was first sold more than a certain period of time before the injury. Ten states have a fixed statute of repose that is significantly longer than North Carolina’s, ranging from ten to fifteen years. That leaves North Carolina as the lonely outlier. Saddled with an inflexible six-year statute of repose, North Carolinians have less protection against defective products than any other United States citizens.

Summary: North Carolina is one of only five jurisdictions that retain the antiquated doctrine of contributory negligence. Here, as in Alabama, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia, a plaintiff whose negligence makes the slightest contribution to his injury is barred from recovering any damages against the tortfeasor. The other 46 states, either by judicial decision or by statute, have adopted some form of comparative fault, allocating damages based on the degree of fault among the plaintiff and the defendants. In 2007, four Republican state legislators introduced a bill to adopt UATRA in North Carolina. The proposed legislation would revolutionize North Carolina tort law by ending contributory negligence, adopting a system of comparative fault, and modifying joint and several liability. Legislators are likely to reintroduce the bill in 2009. If North Carolina adopts UATRA, it will be the first state to do so.