Court Opinion

ID: 9587044
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 23:17:34.372845+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:00.130817
License: Public Domain

HUDSON, Judge,
dissenting.
Although I agree that notice pleading generally applies in North Carolina, I read Rule 8(c) and related cases to require that the defend*461ant actually plead the defense of contributory negligence. See N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1A-1, Rule 8(c) (1999). In their answer here, the defendants did not plead contributory negligence; rather, they gave notice of their intention to so plead, if they learned facts which justified it. Indeed, the defendants here averred in their answer that they had no basis for pleading contributory negligence, but intended to amend to include such allegations, if they learned facts during discovery to justify such an amendment. The defendants did not advise the court that they had learned any such new facts, nor did they amend their answer. Accordingly, I do not believe that the defendants sufficiently pled the defense of contributory negligence, as required by the Rules.
The language of Rule 8(c) at issue here is the following:
(c) Affirmative Defenses. — In pleading to a preceding pleading, a party shall set forth affirmatively . . . contributory negligence .... Such pleading shall contain a short and plain statement of any matter constituting an avoidance or affirmative defense sufficiently particular to give the court and the parties notice of the transactions, occurrences, or series of transactions or occurrences, intended to be proved.
The paragraph that the majority quotes from the answer filed by the defendants, which refers to “conditional contributory negligence,” contains no factual allegations at all, and gives no notice, particular or otherwise, of the occurrences the defendants intended to prove. In fact, the quoted paragraph specifically states that the “defense [of contributory negligence]... cannot be pleaded.” I do not agree that one can read sufficient notice of the basis for the defense into this pleading, which specifically provides that the defendants did not know if they even had such a basis. On its face, this paragraph in the answer fails to satisfy the special pleading requirements of Rule 8(c). Even if the trial court, by implication, granted the defendants’ oral motion to amend their answer, the defendants never actually amended the answer, orally or in writing. Since contributory negligence was ultimately the basis upon which the jury returned its verdict against the plaintiff, I believe that prejudice to the plaintiff is manifest, and I would reverse and remand for a new trial. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.