We are reposting our reporting on North Carolina Business Court Developments in 2022, on this single page, as all Business Court Blog posts after February 2022 are no longer available on the dates originally posted.
These blog posts are numbered and reposted below in chronological order:
- North Carolina Business Court Alerts for Significant Opinions and Orders
The North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts provides a bi-monthly notice of North Carolina Business Court Opinions and Orders of significance. For those interested in signing up for this email service, see this link.
This 25-year old pioneering business court has been one of the leading models for developing business courts in the United States, and has been long recognized for the quality of its jurists, opinions, and innovations.
For those interested in learning more about this important business court, scholarly articles discussing the history and role of the North Carolina Business Court include, among others:
Carrie A. O’Brien, The North Carolina Business Court: North Carolina’s Special Superior Court for Complex Business Cases, 6 N.C. Banking Inst. 367 (2002)
Mitchell L. Bach & Lee Applebaum, A History of the Creation and Jurisdiction of Business Courts in the Last Decade, 60 Bus. Law. 147 (2004)
Hon. Ben F. Tennille & Corrine B. Jones, Developments at the North Carolina Business Court, in Future Trends in State Courts (National Center for State Courts, 2010)
Andrew Jones, Toward a Stronger Economic Future for North Carolina: Precedent and Opinions of the North Carolina Business Court, 6 Elon L. Rev. 189 (2014)
Gregory Day, Revisiting the North Carolina Business Court After Twenty Years, 37 Campbell L. Rev. 277 (2015)
- North Carolina Business Court Judge James Gale Honored
Retired Chief Judge James Gale of the North Carolina Business Court has received Elon University School of Law’s 2021-2022 Leadership in the Law Award. The University’s notice and description of this honor, and Judge Gale’s biography and contributions to the legal community, can be found here.
- Judge Nominated to North Carolina’s Business Court
North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper has nominated Judge Tenisha Jacobs to serve on the North Carolina Business Court. A copy of the Governor’s Press Release can be found here. The nomination is before the General Assembly.
Update: The nomination apparently stalled in the General Assembly, as described in this July 5, 2023 post.
- North Carolina Business Court Report for 2021
The North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts issued its 2021 Annual Report for the North Carolina Business Court, on February 1, 2022.
A copy of the North Carolina Business Court Annual Report for 2021, published in February 2022, can be found here.
As stated in the Report, “[m]ost cases referred to the Business Court in calendar year 2021 involved the law governing corporations, partnerships, and limited liability companies.” There were 48 cases designated in this category. Among the other case types, there were 25 cases designated as either intellectual property or trade secret cases, and ten cases were designated contract disputes involving over $1 Million.
Under the head of “Number of New, Closed, and Pending Cases for the Previous Three Years,” the Report states: “There were 192 cases pending in the Business Court as of December 31, 2021 (178 when counting a consolidated group of cases as one case). Of those 192 cases, 171 were assigned to the Business Court as mandatory complex business cases…. The Chief Justice designated 9 cases as complex business cases and 12 cases as exceptional cases in the Chief Justice’s discretion….”
The Report also states: “In 2021, the Business Court issued 83 written opinions on motions and other matters, many involving issues of first impression. … Business Court judges also regularly prepare written, substantive orders that are not issued as written opinions for publication, some of which appear on the Court’s website….”
For those wishing to review the full report, a copy can be found here.
