Richmond schools defend pursuit of $272K from state at top NC court

The Richmond County Board of Education is defending its pursuit of a decade-old $272,000 judgment against state government. The board filed a brief Monday at the state’s highest court.

State Treasurer Brad Briner and Controller Nels Roseland urge the North Carolina Supreme Court to reject the Richmond school board’s pursuit of the money from the state. Briner and Roseland have asked the court to overturn a split 2-1 decision from the state Court of Appeals. Appellate judges would allow Richmond to move forward with its lawsuit against state officials.

The Richmond board’s lawyer called on state Supreme Court justices to allow that lower court’s decision to stand.

“The determination as to whether the State of North Carolina will honor a new judgment is up to the North Carolina General Assembly and the Governor,”  lawyer George Crump wrote Monday for the school board.

“A new judgment opens the reasonable possibility that the North Carolina General Assembly will within the next ten years honor a judgment that will greatly benefit school children within the Richmond County Schools system,” Crump added.

The state Supreme Court issued a May 23 order blocking a lower court ruling favoring the Richmond County schools.

Briner and Roseland filed a brief on July 23 calling on Supreme Court justices to end the legal battle.

“This lawsuit — an action on a judgment — should have been dead upon arrival,” lawyers for Briner and Roseland wrote. “A decade ago, the Richmond County Board of Education secured a monetary judgment against the state. The monetary judgment, though, was later reversed and vacated by the Court of Appeals.”

“In reversing the judgment, the Court of Appeals declared that the role of the courts in the dispute was over, because the constitution prevented the judiciary from compelling the state or its officers to pay the Board any money owed,” the court filing continued.

“The Board disagreed that the role of the courts was over,” lawyers for Briner and Roseland wrote. “Ignoring the Court of Appeals’ declaration, the Board filed this action on a judgment, to try to enforce the monetary judgment that the Court of Appeals had reversed and vacated. The Board named, among others, the State Treasurer and the State Controller as defendants, apparently hoping the courts would force these two state officials to open the doors to the public treasury — despite the Court of Appeals saying the constitution foreclosed such a possibility.”

Briner and Roseland “are cloaked with sovereign immunity — which exists to protect the state treasury from monetary judgments — and the Board failed to plead that the state had waived sovereign immunity for this new lawsuit,” the court filing explained.

Based on sovereign immunity and the fact that the money judgment had been “reversed and vacated,” the Richmond school board “had no right to be in court trying to collect money from the state,” lawyers for Briner and Roseland argued.

A trial judge and the North Carolina Court of Appeals both allowed the lawsuit to move forward. Reversing those decisions would “reaffirm that the Board cannot continue to menace the public treasury in court when the Board has no chance of judicial relief,” according to the court filing.

When the high court issued its May order, justices also agreed unanimously to take up the case. Justice Richard Dietz did not take part in the decision. Dietz addressed the case as an Appeals Court judge in 2017,

A split state Appeals Court panel ruled in April that the Richmond County Board of Education could continue to pursue the money judgment against the state. That judgment is a decade old. State lawmakers never have agreed to pay the bill.

The Richmond County school board returned to court in February 2024 to renew the judgment. A trial judge rejected state officials’ motion to dismiss the case in July 2024.

The Appeals Court’s 2-1 decision allowed the legal proceedings to move forward.

“The decision below is unprecedented,” wrote lawyers representing Briner and Roseland in a May 7 court filing at the state’s highest court. “Never before has a North Carolina appellate court allowed an ‘action on a judgment’ to proceed against state officials acting in their official capacities.”

The dispute stems from a 2011 state law that required defendants convicted of driving with improper equipment in North Carolina to pay a new $50 fee. The fee was designated to cover prison maintenance costs.

The Richmond school board sued, arguing that the money should head instead toward local schools. “Plaintiff based its contention on a provision in our state constitution which mandates that fines collected in a county court be used for the public schools in that county,” Chief Judge Chris Dillon wrote for the Appeals Court majority on April 2.

The state Appeals Court addressed the initial lawsuit three times. First, appellate judges agreed that sovereign immunity did not protect the state from the lawsuit. Second, appellate judges agreed with a trial judge that the money should head to local schools rather than prison maintenance.

After the second appeal, the trial judge ordered state officials to pay the schools $272,300 in fines connected to the 2011 law.

“In the third appeal, however, we reversed the trial court’s order, concluding that it is not in the power of the judiciary to order satisfaction of the judgment against the State; that is, the judgment could be satisfied only if our General Assembly appropriated the money to satisfy the judgment,” Dillon wrote.

Dietz wrote the Appeals Court’s opinion in the third appeal.

In February 2024, the Richmond County school board returned to court, “seeking that a new judgment be entered” based on the earlier judgment of $272,300 against the state, Dillon explained. A trial judge rejected state officials’ motion to dismiss the case in July 2024.

“We agree with Defendants that any judgment that Plaintiff may obtain in this matter may not ever be collectible,” Dillon wrote.

“Plaintiff obtained a valid judgment in the prior action, though Plaintiff at present cannot collect, as our General Assembly has not appropriated the money to pay the judgment,” he added.

That’s not necessarily the end of the story, Dillon explained.

“Our General Assembly has determined that a judgment creditor’s right to collect on a judgment is subject to a ten-year statute of limitations but that a judgment credit may bring a new action to enforce the prior judgment one time, thus effectively renewing a prior judgment for ten more years,” the chief judge wrote.

“Here, Plaintiff seeks to renew the judgment it obtained in the first action,” Dillon explained. “And based on the record before us, it appears that Plaintiff commenced this present action within ten years of that first judgment. Accordingly, we hold that the trial court did not err by denying Defendants’ motion to dismiss.”

“If Plaintiff is successful in this action in ‘renewing’ its prior judgment, Plaintiff still may never collect, depending on whether our General Assembly appropriates money to pay any said new judgment. Nonetheless, Plaintiff is entitled to renew its judgment and hope,” Dillon wrote.

Judge Allegra Collins joined Dillon’s opinion. Judge Julee Flood dissented.

“While the majority concludes that Plaintiff, in filing its complaint (the ‘Complaint’), ‘seeks to renew the judgment it obtained in the first action[,]’ the face of the Complaint reveals an absence of law and fact in support of Plaintiff’s claim, and such a conclusion requires that this Court make inferences impermissible under our standard of review,” Flood wrote.

“[T]he money judgment explicitly identified in Plaintiff’s prayer for relief was reversed by this Court, and therefore no longer exists,” Flood added.

Flood would have ordered the trial judge to grant state officials’ motion to dismiss the case.

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