By Mitch Kokai
Carolina Journal
Four years after North Carolina faced the brunt of COVID-19, the state’s top court faces a series of cases tied to the pandemic. Its rulings could influence how government and businesses respond to future emergencies.
The North Carolina Supreme Court already has made its first pronouncement in a high-profile COVID controversy.
Justices ruled in August in favor of Ace Speedway, an Alamance County race track. Ace’s owners challenged the state’s decision to shutter the track during early days of concern about COVID’s spread.
The Supreme Court ruled that Ace made a strong enough case to proceed with a lawsuit against North Carolina’s top health official. Ace argued that Gov. Roy Cooper and his health secretary targeted the speedway because of one owner’s public criticism of Cooper’s COVID shutdown orders.
State lawyers opposing Ace emphasized Cooper’s need for a relatively free hand to address the pandemic’s health threat.
Those arguments did not persuade Supreme Court justices. Even Democrat Allison Riggs, who owes her seat to a Cooper appointment, backed the court’s unanimous ruling favoring Ace.
Riggs and her colleagues will hear eight more COVID-related cases on Oct. 22-23.
Two cases challenge another aspect of Cooper’s shutdowns. Separate sets of North Carolina bar owners contend that the governor violated their constitutional rights. They criticize Cooper for keeping their businesses closed while allowing others to reopen during the pandemic. They question why the government ordered their doors shuttered when restaurants with bars reopened for customers.
Lower courts have allowed bar owners’ lawsuits to move forward. Yet Supreme Court justices have agreed to hear the state’s appeal. As with the Ace case, government lawyers focus on Cooper’s power to address an international health emergency.
Legal challenges related to COVID shutdowns extend beyond the governor’s orders. Two cases on the state Supreme Court’s October calendar involve the University of North Carolina’s decision to drop in-person instruction.
In one dispute, students and parents from across the UNC System seek partial refunds for payments made in spring 2020. Every UNC campus stopped in-person classes and converted to online instruction roughly halfway through that semester. The lawsuit takes aim at a state law passed shortly after the semester ended. Legislators aimed to shield the university from legal liability for COVID-related shutdowns. Lower courts have ruled in favor of UNC.
A second case focuses on the university system’s two flagship campuses. UNC Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University remained closed to most students in fall 2020, when other public universities had reopened their doors. Two students seek refunds of fees paid for on-campus services that were unavailable during that semester.
No state law blocks the second suit. The students and UNC disagree instead about whether the absence of on-campus amenities amounted to a contractual violation.
One of the high court’s October COVID cases deals with a state Emergency Act, approved unanimously in May 2020. It was designed to “encourage health professionals to meet our State’s critical needs” during the pandemic.
Medical providers in Pitt County argue that the state law should protect them from a suit based on a hysterectomy surgery performed in June 2020. The state Appeals Court ruled that the emergency legislation did not shield the defendants from the plaintiffs’ claims.
Another case focuses on whether a federal law blocks a lawsuit challenging the forced vaccination of a 14-year-old public school student. Tanner Smith sought a school-mandated COVID test at a Guilford County high school in 2021. Instead of a test, a clinic worker administered the COVID vaccine to Smith against his will and without parental consent.
Smith and his mother sued. Lower courts ruled against them.
The state Appeals Court labeled the forced vaccination “egregious.” Yet appellate judges agreed that the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act protected both the school system and the medical society that administered the vaccine.
State Supreme Court justices have agreed to review that decision.
Two of the COVID cases focus on insurance. Sixteen restaurants and the fashion store company Cato filed separate lawsuits against insurers that would not cover losses linked to government-imposed COVID shutdowns. A trial judge ruled in favor of the restaurants, but the state Appeals Court ruled for insurance companies in both disputes.
Each case presents interesting legal arguments. In resolving these disputes, the state Supreme Court could set important precedents.
Future governors and legislatures could gain new guidance about constitutionally acceptable responses to emergency conditions. Businesses could acquire useful information about their ability to operate effectively when unforeseen circumstances arise.
The decisions could help determine the way the Tar Heel State operates in the years ahead.
Mitch Kokai is senior political analyst for the John Locke Foundation.
It was a SCAMDEMIC.
The state should lose every single case as Covid was a hoax perpetuated by the government and media in order to rig an election and usher in DEI.