MacFarlane v. North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission
| Decision Date | 26 June 1956 |
| Docket Number | No. 531,531 |
| Citation | 93 S.E.2d 557,244 N.C. 385 |
| Parties | Willie MACFARLANE v. NORTH CAROLINA WILDLIFE RESOURCES COMMISSION. |
| Court | North Carolina Supreme Court |
E. C. Bryson, Durham, for plaintiff appellant.
William B. Rodman, Jr., Atty. Gen., Claude L. Love, Asst. Atty. Gen., and F. Kent Burns, Raleigh, of staff, for defendant appellee.
Ordinarily an Act of the General Assembly is only prospective in effect. Here, however, the Act is retroactive as to plaintiff and certain others named therein. The newly created court is expressly directed to consider their claims.
The General Assembly in 1951, by adopting ch. 1059, Session Laws 1951, now codified as General Statutes ch. 143, art. 31, granted a qualified or limited waiver of its immunity against suits for personal injury or property damage; created the Industrial Commission a court to hear the cause of any person who claims that he has been injured or his property has been damaged by the negligence of a State employee while such employee is engaged in the discharge of his duties; limits the amount of recovery to a maximum of $8,000; and provides that on appeal to the Superior Court the appeal shall be heard by the judge without a jury. It prescribes no rules or regulations to be followed by the newly established court in hearing such claims, nor does it limit or prescribe the procedure except as noted. That is to say, it does not undertake to alter either the substantive or adjective law of North Carolina as applied in this State in cases founded on allegations of negligence except that the claim must originate in the newly established court, must be heard on appeal without a jury, the burden to negative contributory negligence is placed on the claimant, and the recovery allowed must not exceed $8,000.
Except as noted, the law of negligence, contributory negligence, estoppel, the liability of an employer under the doctrine of respondeat superior, and other provisions of the law of negligence are not mentioned in the Act. It is apparent then that the General Assembly intended that a claim for damages for injury proximately caused by the negligence of a State employee while engaged in the discharge of his duties as such shall be tried under the common law rules in tort actions founded on negligence as any other claim of like nature between private individuals would be tried, subject to the limitations prescribed in the Act. We must accept this as being implicit in the language of the Act itself.
There is but one alternative: The General Assembly created a new court, granted a limited waiver of immunity, and agreed to submit the State to limited liability, but left the Industrial...
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James v. Prince George's County
...169, 171-172 (1973); Bernardine v. City of New York, 294 N.Y. 361, 62 N.E.2d 604, 605 (1945); Macfarlane v. North Carolina Wildlife R. Com'n, 244 N.C. 385, 93 S.E.2d 557, 559 (1956); Harris v. State, 48 Ohio Misc. 27, 358 N.E.2d 639, 641 (Ct.Cl.1976). In other words, the government, under s......
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Stone v. North Carolina Dept. of Labor
...In passing the Tort Claims Act, the legislature incorporated the common law of negligence. MacFarlane v. N.C. Wildlife Resources Comm'n, 244 N.C. 385, 387, 93 S.E.2d 557, 559-60 (1956), overruled in part on other grounds by Barney, 282 N.C. at 284-85, 192 S.E.2d at 277. The public duty doct......
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Simpson v. Plyler, 449
...person is entitled to but one satisfaction and the release operates to extinguish the cause of action. MacFarlane v. N. C. Wildlife Resources Com., 244 N.C. 385, 93 S.E.2d 557; King v. Powell, 220 N.C. 511, 17 S. E.2d 659; McInturff v. St. Louis Union Trust Co., 201 N.C. 16, 158 S.E. 547; H......
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Strickland v. the Univ. of North Carolina At Wilmington
...be determined under the same rules as those applicable to litigation between private individuals.” (quoting MacFarlane v. Wildlife Res. Comm'n, 244 N.C. 385, 93 S.E.2d 557 (1956))). Accordingly, in a case such as this, where the breach is the first link in a multi-link chain of causation (n......