Court Opinion

ID: 9584852
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:53:16.486303+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:19:02.368418
License: Public Domain

Judge WHICHARD
concurring.
The first issue raised in the dissenting opinion, that relating to the instruction on independent contractors, was not argued in defendant’s brief. Assuming there was in fact error in the instruction, it was not of such magnitude, in my view, that this Court should ex mero motu make it the basis for awarding a new trial.
As to the punitive damages issue, “[i]t is a well established principle of statutory construction that a statute must be construed, if possible, so as to give effect to every part of it, it being presumed that the Legislature did not intend any of its provisions to be surplusage.” State v. Williams, 286 N.C. 422, 431, 212 S.E. 2d 113, 119 (1975). To treat the G.S. 28A-18-2(b)(5) phrases “willful or wanton injury” and “gross negligence” as synonymous, as does the dissenting opinion, effectively renders one or the other mere surplusage, contrary to the mandate of the foregoing rule of construction.
I believe the General Assembly intended, by use of the disjunctive in the phrase “through maliciousness, willful or wanton injury, or gross negligence,” to establish three separate categories of wrongful conduct which could be found to have *387caused a decedent’s death. By analogy to the criminal law, conduct from which a jury could find murder could fall in the category of “maliciousness,” see, e.g., State v. Withers, 271 N.C. 364, 156 S.E. 2d 733 (1967); conduct from which a jury could find voluntary manslaughter could fall in the category of “willful or wanton injury,” see, e.g., State v. Rummage, 280 N.C. 51, 185 S.E. 2d 221 (1971); and conduct from which a jury could find involuntary manslaughter could fall in the category of “gross negligence,” see, e.g., Rummage, supra.
For the foregoing reasons, I concur in the opinion by Judge Robert M. Martin.