Senate Bill 698 Proposes Two-Year Terms For All North Carolina State Judges and Justices

By Molly Martinson

On October 17, 2017, North Carolina State Senator Rabon filed a bill in the State Senate to amend the North Carolina Constitution to limit terms of office for all state judges and justices to two years.

Currently, Article IV of the North Carolina Constitution provides that District Court judges are elected to four-year terms (N.C. Const. art. IV, sec. 10), whereas Superior Court judges, Court of Appeals judges, and Supreme Court justices are elected to eight-year terms (N.C. Const. art. IV, sec. 16).  Senate Bill 698 would amend the North Carolina Constitution to limit all such terms to two years.  Senate Bill 698 further provides that all terms of office for judges and justices both elected and appointed prior to July 1, 2018 shall expire on December 31, 2018.  Finally, the bill proposes that this constitutional amendment be put to a vote during the 2018 statewide primary election.

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4th Circuit: Alleged Sexist Remarks Insufficient To Support Employee’s Title VII Claims

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By Zachary Anstett

A recent Fourth Circuit decision held that alleged statements from a supervisor that included, “We don’t want women working in the morning” and “I don’t want three women on my schedule,” were not sufficient to support a plaintiff’s claims of discrimination or harassment in violation of Title VII. In the unpublished opinion issued October 10, 2017, the Fourth Circuit also stated that placing the plaintiff on a Performance Improvement Process (“PIP”) did not constitute an adverse action that could support her discrimination or retaliation claims. The panel, consisting of Judges Niemeyer, Traxler, and Keenan, affirmed the District Court’s grant of summary judgment for the employer.

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Direct Contact With the Adverse Insurance Adjuster After Appointment of Counsel

By Allan “Al” P. Root

After fruitless negotiations with an insurance adjuster, you file suit and an attorney is retained to represent the defendant. You have been dealing with the adjuster on this and other claims over many years and have developed a relationship, and when your client calls you saying to settle on any terms because she needs the money, you know that the quickest response will come if you call the adjuster. Does the ethical bar on contacting the attorney’s client extend to the insurance company as well as the insured?

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Takeaways From the National Juvenile Defender Leadership Summit

By Eric Zogry

From Oct. 19 through Oct. 22, I attended the 21st Annual National Juvenile Defender Leadership Summit in Albuquerque, N. M. The Summit, presented by the National Juvenile Defender Center, brings together hundreds of juvenile defenders, youth advocates and other juvenile justice stakeholders from around the country. The two and a half day conference includes plenary sessions, interspersed with workshops. Plenary topics trend toward cutting-edge issues, and this year included panels on youth homelessness, the immigration crisis and the injustice of race-based policing. Plenaries also provided short segments on new initiatives, with titles such as “We Are All Criminals” and “Creative Justice.”

Between the plenaries there are eight workshops running simultaneously. Workshops range from trial tactics to innovative policy strategies to best practices. I enjoyed getting a refresher on defending Miller cases in one session then learning about the use of data in improving defender performance in another. I was honored to be co-presenting a workshop on creating a competent juvenile defense system with my colleagues Josh Dohan from the Youth Advocacy Division in Massachusetts and Devon Lee from the Wisconsin Office of the State Public Defender.

Another great benefit of the Summit is the opportunity to interact with leaders from states around your geographical region. North Carolina is part of the Southern Juvenile Defender Center (SJDC), along with six other states. Meetings from the SJDC Advisory Committee and Regional Caucus help focus the region on initiatives to help support policy and practice efforts specific to the regional.  We were very proud that one of our own, Gary “Gar” Blume from Northport, Ala., was awarded the annual Robert E. Shepherd Award for Excellence in Juvenile Defense.

For more information about the Summit, please look here or feel free to contact our office.

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Blockchain Technology: Its Implications for International Trade

Editor’s Note: The below article is the first in a three-part series about blockchain and its implications on international trade.

By Sammy Naji

International trade is undergoing a tremendous transformation thanks to the emergence of a groundbreaking technology called blockchain. Blockchain is essentially a ledger that is distributed on a network of independent computers, which allows for unalterable records of asset ownership. The ledger’s immutability comes from the fact that any attempt to alter a ledger stored on one computer in the network would be exposed by the ledgers stored on the rest of the computers in the network. Thus, blockchain technology provides international trade a more a reliable alternative to the current paper based systems of trade while simultaneously reducing the fraud, shipment time, and costs.

Blockchain gained its prominence as the technological infrastructure for virtual currencies such as bitcoin.[1] Since blockchain can keep accurate records of asset ownership and ensure that asset transfers stem from their legitimate owners, blockchain technology has solved the problem that previously plagued past attempts to establish reliable virtual currencies: the potential for fraud.[2]

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Local Governments vs. Big Pharma: A New Wave of Litigation Alleges Liability For the Opioid Epidemic

By Drew Erteschik,[1] J.M. Durnovich and Cosmo Zinkow

        

Introduction

The opioid epidemic is an American tragedy.  It is difficult to convey the breadth of the epidemic with a single statistic, but let this sink in:  For every person killed by gun violence, three people will die from an opioid overdose.[2]

As the epidemic worsens, local governments are scrambling for solutions.  They are also scrambling to keep up with the costs—the public health, law enforcement, public employment, and other costs that the opioid crisis has left on their doorstep.  With insufficient financial assistance from Congress and state legislatures to cover these costs, local governments are turning to the courts.

Across the nation, cities and counties are suing opioid drugmakers and distributors.  These lawsuits seek to hold drug companies accountable—at least in part—for the opioid epidemic.  No North Carolina city or county has filed a lawsuit of this kind yet, but they surely will soon.

The authors of this article—two litigators and their future colleague—would like to explore this litigation in three parts:

The first part gives a brief overview of the costs of the opioid epidemic on North Carolina and its local governments. The second part discusses state and local government litigation against drug companies in other states—essentially a preview of what future litigation in North Carolina might look like. The third part gives the authors’ predictions for the litigation, along with recently released information about a number of large settlements.

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