For an injury claim from a wreck on a North Carolina road, filed in a North Carolina court, the rules come from North Carolina rather than from your home state. Everything below assumes a case in a North Carolina court. The sections take the Supreme Court rule first, then the fault rule, the deadline, the county, the helmet law for riders, coverage for a guest in a North Carolina-insured car and how a first meeting works from another state.
Injury state for substance, North Carolina for procedure
The Supreme Court of North Carolina stated the state's traditional conflict of laws rule in Boudreau v. Baughman, 322 N.C. 331 (1988). Under that rule, matters affecting the substantial rights of the parties are determined by the law of the situs of the claim, and remedial or procedural rights are determined by the law of the forum.
For an action sounding in tort, Boudreau says, the state where the injury occurred is the situs of the claim, and the court wrote that it had consistently adhered to that rule in tort actions. The same opinion says the law of the forum state decides what is procedure and what is substance. For a wreck on a North Carolina road tried in a North Carolina court, the situs and the forum are both North Carolina. Both halves of the rule point to the same place.
| Question | Whose law | Source |
|---|---|---|
| The substantive rules of the injury claim | North Carolina, as the state where the injury occurred | Boudreau, 322 N.C. at 335 |
| Remedial and procedural rights | North Carolina, as the forum | Boudreau, 322 N.C. at 335 |
| The filing deadline | North Carolina, because ordinary statutes of limitation are procedural | Boudreau, 322 N.C. at 340 |
| The county where the case is tried | North Carolina venue statute | G.S. 1-82 |
| Helmets for a motorcycle rider | North Carolina statute for its highways | G.S. 20-140.4(a)(2) and (b) |
When you are hurt on a North Carolina road and the injury claim is in a North Carolina court, your home state supplies neither the substance nor the procedure of that claim.
Both halves of the rule point to the same place.
Does my home state's fault rule follow me to North Carolina?
Under Boudreau v. Baughman, the fault rule for a North Carolina wreck tried in a North Carolina court comes from North Carolina, not from the injured person's home state. Boudreau sends substance to the state where the injury occurred and procedure to the forum, so a rule about the injured person's own fault comes from North Carolina whichever label it carries.
North Carolina's rule is contributory negligence. North Carolina Pattern Jury Instruction Motor Vehicle 104.10 tells the jury that when the plaintiff's negligence joins with the defendant's negligence in proximately causing the plaintiff's own injury, it is called contributory negligence and the plaintiff cannot recover.
Who carries the burden on contributory negligence
Instruction 104.10 puts the burden of proof on the defendant. The defendant has to prove by the greater weight of the evidence that the plaintiff was negligent.
What the instruction says follows a finding
The instruction tells the jury the plaintiff cannot recover. The test of what is negligence is the same for the plaintiff as for the defendant.
Exception. Footnote 3 to Instruction 104.10 says to omit the words "and the plaintiff cannot recover" when an issue of last clear chance is being submitted, and it points to N.C.P.I.-Motor Vehicle 105.15 for that instruction.
I would not assume your home state's fault rule reaches a North Carolina injury claim. That assumption is the first one I would set down.
I would not assume your home state's fault rule reaches a North Carolina injury claim.
Three years under G.S. 1-52, whatever your home state allows
A North Carolina court applies the North Carolina limitations period to a claim from a North Carolina wreck, because North Carolina treats ordinary statutes of limitation as procedural. In Boudreau v. Baughman the Supreme Court of North Carolina said ordinary statutes of limitation are clearly procedural, affecting only the remedy directly and not the right to recover, and procedure follows the law of the forum.
G.S. 1-52(5) sets three years for an action for injury to the person not arising on contract. G.S. 1-52(16) says a personal injury claim does not accrue until bodily harm becomes apparent or ought reasonably to have become apparent to the claimant, whichever event first occurs.
Exception. Boudreau treated statutes of repose differently from ordinary statutes of limitation and held that statutes of repose are substantive provisions for choice of law purposes. A repose period follows the law of the state where the injury occurred, which for a wreck on a North Carolina road is still North Carolina.
The G.S. 1-21 proviso is written for claims from elsewhere
G.S. 1-21 says that where a cause of action arose outside this State and is barred by the laws of the jurisdiction in which it arose, no action may be maintained in North Carolina courts to enforce it, except where the cause of action originally accrued in favor of a resident of this State. That proviso is written for a cause of action that arose outside North Carolina, and Boudreau places the situs of a tort claim in the state where the injury occurred.
The same section has a separate rule for a defendant who leaves the State, and the post on suing an out-of-state driver covers how that rule works. I would put the North Carolina date on the calendar and work from that one.
The period that controls a North Carolina case is the North Carolina period. A different period in your home state does not move it.
Which North Carolina county hears a visitor's case?
G.S. 1-82 sets the county for a North Carolina injury suit by where the parties reside when the action begins. A visitor does not reside in any North Carolina county, so the county comes from the other side of the case or from the plaintiff's choice.
When the other driver lives in North Carolina, G.S. 1-82 places the case in the county where the defendants, or any of them, reside. When no party lives in North Carolina, the action can be tried in any county the plaintiff designates in the summons and complaint, subject to the power of the court to change the place of trial in the cases provided by statute.
The county of the wreck is not the test under G.S. 1-82. Residence is.
Exception. G.S. 1-82 treats a person who has resided on or been stationed at a United States Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Space Force or Air Force installation in North Carolina for one year or more before the action begins as a resident of the county where the installation sits, and of an adjacent county where that person lives. The term person includes military personnel and their spouses and dependents.
The northeast North Carolina page applies the rule to a wreck between two families from other states. The post on an injury in a county where you do not live covers venue for North Carolina residents.
Out-of-state riders and the G.S. 20-140.4 helmet rule
G.S. 20-140.4(a)(2) bars operating a motorcycle or moped on a North Carolina highway or public vehicular area unless the operator and all passengers wear safety helmets that comply with Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS) 218, with a retention strap properly secured. G.S. 20-140.4 does not mention where a rider lives, and its only exception to the helmet requirement is the autocycle sentence.
G.S. 20-140.4(b) says a violation of any provision of the section shall not be considered negligence per se or contributory negligence per se in any civil action. Subsection (b) names both forms, and it reaches any civil action.
Exception. The helmet requirement in G.S. 20-140.4(a)(2) does not apply to the operator of, or passengers in, an autocycle that has completely enclosed seating or is equipped with a roll bar or roll cage.
The motorcycle accident page covers the rest of a rider's claim in North Carolina.
G.S. 20-140.4 does not mention where a rider lives.
A guest in a North Carolina-insured car is a person insured
G.S. 20-279.21(b)(3) requires uninsured motorist coverage in a bodily injury liability policy delivered or issued for delivery in North Carolina for a vehicle registered or principally garaged here. The persons insured under that coverage include a guest in the motor vehicle to which the policy applies and any person who uses the vehicle with the consent of the named insured.
The guest clause in G.S. 20-279.21(b)(3) contains no residence term. The residence term in that definition, while resident of the same household, attaches to the spouse and relatives of a named insured.
G.S. 20-279.21(b)(4) says the provisions of subdivision (3) apply to the underinsured motorist coverage that subdivision (4) requires. What any coverage pays depends on the policy and the facts, and I do not predict it.
Exception. G.S. 20-279.21(b)(3) does not require uninsured motorist coverage in a policy applicable solely to commercial motor vehicles, as defined in G.S. 20-4.01(3d), or solely to fleet vehicles. A policy that insures both commercial and noncommercial motor vehicles still has to provide uninsured motorist coverage, in amounts tied to the highest liability limits for any one noncommercial vehicle on the policy, subject to the insured's right to choose other limits as the subsection sets out.
G.S. 20-279.21(b)(3) speaks to policies delivered or issued for delivery in North Carolina for vehicles registered or principally garaged here. A policy you bought at home for a car garaged at home is outside that description, and its own terms say what it covers.
Talking with a North Carolina attorney from your home state
The first conversation with me happens by phone or video, and that works the same from your home state. Wherever you are in North Carolina, I can come to you for the meeting after that call.
A phone or video call first
The first contact is a call or a video conversation, from wherever you are.
An in-person meeting where you are in North Carolina
I meet you in person where you are in the state.
The decision to work together, made in that meeting
Whether we work together is decided in that meeting and not before it.
The how it works page lays out that sequence. The contact page takes the request for the first call.
