Issue

North Carolina—direct constitutional claims—condemnation of plaintiffs' properties—adequate state law remedy

Summary

In an action raising direct claims under the state constitution ("Corum claims"), in which plaintiffs alleged that defendant city violated their rights to equal protection and substantive due process by condemning plaintiffs' properties and marking them for demolition, the trial court had subject matter jurisdiction to hear the claims even though plaintiffs had not exhausted their administrative remedies first. Exhaustion of administrative remedies does not dictate a court's jurisdiction over direct constitutional claims, but instead speaks to an element of this type of claim: whether an adequate state law remedy exists for the constitutional harm alleged. Further, in determining the availability of an adequate state law remedy, plaintiffs' equal protection and due process claims could not be lumped together, since each claim involved different constitutional rights, raised different injuries, and envisioned different modes of relief.

Summary from the North Carolina Reports digest (official subject index). Read the opinion →