In State v. Flood, the defendant was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, and felon-in-possession of a firearm after a jury found he killed Jerrod Watlington during a 2007 drug-related shooting at his apartment, relying on the theory of premeditation and deliberation as well as felony murder. The North Carolina Court of Appeals reversed the convictions and ordered a new trial, holding that the trial court erred by admitting detailed facts of the defendant's 1994 New Jersey homicide under Evidence Rule 404(b). The court reasoned that the prior shooting was not sufficiently similar to the charged offenses to prove identity, intent, or plan, and its admission was prejudicial because the remaining evidence—primarily conflicting eyewitness accounts from Rasheem Currie and Paul Lloyd, plus minimal forensic links—was not overwhelming, creating a reasonable possibility of a different verdict without the 1994 evidence.
The case arose after a fire destroyed a building owned by Cully’s Motorcross Park, Inc., and insured by North Carolina Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company. The insurer denied the claim, suspecting arson and financial motive by the Volpes, then provided information to police that led to Ms. Volpe’s arrest for obtaining property by false pretenses; the criminal charge was later dismissed. Ms. Volpe and Cully’s counterclaimed for breach of the insurance contract, malicious prosecution, and unfair or deceptive acts under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-1.1. Following a bench trial, the court awarded Ms. Volpe damages for malicious prosecution and treble damages plus attorney’s fees on the § 75-1.1 claim tied to the prosecution, while denying recovery on the underlying insurance claim. The appellate court affirmed, holding that the insurer initiated the prosecution without probable cause and for the improper purpose of gaining leverage in the civil suit, that this conduct supported separate liability under § 75-1.1, and that the Noerr-Pennington doctrine did not apply.
In Mynhardt v. Elon University, a twenty-one-year-old Elon student sued the university and Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity after he was paralyzed during a physical altercation while attending an uninvited, off-campus party at a house rented by fraternity members. The North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed summary judgment for the defendants, dismissing the negligence claims. The court held that no special relationship existed giving rise to a duty of care, as the incident occurred at a private off-campus event unknown to the defendants and unrelated to any school-sponsored activity, and the general student-university relationship does not make institutions insurers of student safety. The court further rejected agency and joint venture theories, finding no legal basis to impose liability on the defendants for the actions of the individuals involved.
Antonio Dshawn Stowes was convicted after a jury trial of possession of a firearm by a felon, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and carrying a concealed weapon, based in part on a store manager’s identification of him from a pretrial photo lineup and an in-court identification. On appeal, Stowes argued that the lineup was impermissibly suggestive, that police violated the Eyewitness Identification Reform Act by having the investigating officer present, and that the in-court identification should have been excluded as tainted. The Court of Appeals held that Stowes’s motion to suppress the lineup evidence was untimely, that the lineup procedure was not impermissibly suggestive because the filler photos were similar and the administrator did not know the suspect’s identity, and that the trial court had already provided all statutory remedies for the EIRA violation short of exclusion. The court therefore found no error in admitting the identifications or in the resulting convictions.
In State v. Lindsey, the North Carolina Court of Appeals reviewed the convictions of Jerry Lamont Lindsey for felonious eluding arrest and possession of cocaine and marijuana. The charges stemmed from a 2009 police pursuit of a van that fled at high speed after an officer attempted a traffic stop; the driver escaped on foot after crashing in a Wendy's parking lot, where officers later found the drugs near trash receptacles in an area open to the public. The court reversed the trial court's denial of the defendant's motion to dismiss. It held that the evidence was insufficient to establish the defendant's identity as the perpetrator of eluding or his constructive possession of the drugs, as the facts showed only suspicion rather than substantial proof linking him to the contraband found in a public space with no direct evidence of his control or connection to it.
In Muteff v. Invacare Corp., the executor of Virginia Miller sued wheelchair manufacturer Invacare and seller American Mobility after Miller died from burns sustained when her house caught fire in 2006. Miller, who had multiple sclerosis and used the wheelchair, had called 911 reporting the chair was on fire; the plaintiff alleged product liability claims for negligence and breach of implied warranty based on a purported wiring defect and flammable materials, plus an unfair trade practices claim, while the defendants contended that Miller’s own actions—using a metal necklace to secure the charger cord—caused a short circuit and that any defect was not a proximate cause. A jury found for the defendants after the trial court instructed on insulating negligence and took judicial notice of a Texas Supreme Court opinion involving one of the plaintiff’s experts. The Court of Appeals held that the insulating negligence instruction was erroneous because it improperly allowed the plaintiff’s own conduct to insulate the defendants, but the error was not prejudicial; it also found no abuse of discretion in the judicial notice ruling because the instruction addressed only the opinion’s existence and left credibility determinations to the jury. The court therefore affirmed the judgment for the defendants.