Court Opinion

ID: 9566526
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 19:40:34.563205+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:38:18.401365
License: Public Domain

Justice EDMUNDS
dissenting.
Briefly stated, the issue in this case is whether the doctrine of sovereign immunity bars NCIGA from recovering from GTCC funds paid by NCIGA to cover workers’ compensation claims filed against GTCC once Reliance Insurance Company, which had carried GTCC’s workers’ compensation policy, became insolvent.
The Insurance Guaranty Association Act creating NCIGA contains no waiver of sovereign immunity. N.C.G.S. ch. 58, art. 48 (2009). The majority nevertheless applies the waiver in N.C.G.S. § 97-7, in *113which the General Assembly expressly waived sovereign immunity for workers’ compensation claims brought against the State. That statute also permits governmental entities to purchase insurance to secure their liability under the Workers’ Compensation Act. Id. § 97-7 (2009). However, no workers’ compensation claims directly underlie this case. Every worker who had a valid covered claim apparently has been compensated or will be compensated by NCIGA. The question now is whether GTCC must reimburse NCIGA. Because no workers’ compensation claims are at stake, the waiver of sovereign immunity in section 97-7 is inapplicable. In the absence of an applicable waiver, sovereign immunity applies and GTCC is not liable.
Although the majority cites Teachy v. Coble Dairies, Inc., 306 N.C. 324, 293 S.E.2d 182 (1982), as authority for its interpretation that waivers found in one statute can be portaged over to another statute, that case is distinguishable. In Teachy, the plaintiff sued the defendants for wrongful death arising out of a traffic collision. Id. at 325, 293 S.E.2d at 183. The defendants then filed a third-party complaint against the North Carolina Department of Transportation, alleging that a traffic light at the intersection where the accident occurred had been maintained negligently. Id. at 326, 293 S.E.2d at 183. When the State argued that'sovereign immunity shielded it from suit, we found that the common-law “right to indemnification of a passively negligent tort-feasor from an actively negligent tort-feasor” arose out of the underlying tort claim and that the State had waived immunity from such indemnification claims in the Tort Claims Act. Id. at 332, 293 S.E.2d at 186-87. Thus, the tort theory of negligence directly underlay both the plaintiff’s original claim and the defendants’ subsequent claim against DOT, and the Tort Claims Act waived sovereign immunity in such suits.
In contrast, the majority here bootstraps a statutory waiver of sovereign immunity that is applicable only to workers’ compensation claims into a suit over insurance liability brought by plaintiff NCIGA against defendant GTCC under the Insurance Guaranty Association Act, not the Workers’ Compensation Act. The original claims between GTCC and the injured workers involved workers’ compensation liability and were insured by third party Reliance. The majority’s determination, that the workers’ compensation waiver in section 97-7 reaches as far as claims by a fourth party (NCIGA) for indemnification of the insurance liability of insolvent third party Reliance, is an unwarranted extension of the holding in Teachy.
*114The majority correctly notes that this Court historically has been reluctant to find exceptions to the long-standing doctrine of sovereign immunity when the General Assembly has not explicitly set out a waiver. See Guthrie v. N.C. State Ports Auth., 307 N.C. 522, 537-38, 299 S.E.2d 618, 627 (1983) (“Waiver of sovereign immunity may not be lightly inferred and State statutes waiving this immunity, being in derogation of the sovereign right to immunity, must be strictly construed.”) (citation omitted). While I agree with the majority that the 2003 amendments to the applicable statutes may prevent a repetition of the immediate issue presented here, the majority’s methodology is contrary to the letter and the spirit of Guthrie and invites creative attempts to circumvent sovereign immunity. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
Chief Justice PARKER and Justice TIMMONS-GOODSON join in this dissenting opinion.