The Business Court handed down 10 Orders of Significance in July 2026. Four of those were Orders on Designation (which I've mentioned several times that I do not write about). This Newsletter covers five of non-Designation cases. I wrote about the sixth (Watts Guerra LLC v. Series 1 of Oxford Ins. Co. NC LLC, 2026 NCBC Order 57A (Earp, J.)) In a previous Orders of Significance Newsletter.

The five covered here were particularly interesting to me. They include a tongue lashing of a lawyer who Judge Houston felt had not moved to amend his answer as promptly as the Judge felt it should have been (the Pinchot Forest Homeowners case); a rejection of the argument that Judge Earp had mishandled a BRC 10.9 dispute (the United Therapeutics Corp. ruling); a case pointing out what should be obvious— that a TRO is only temporary in the Mountain Girl Ventures, LLC ruling); and a ruling on a Motion in Limine in the Exela Pharma Sciences ruling); and an Order on what it takes to get a modification of the automatic stay under the Receivership Act (Gray Construction).

Hot tip: when you're trying to explain your lack of promptness to a Court, don't say things like this:

Judge Houston dealt with exactly that situation in MJB Props., Inc. v. Pinchot Forest Homeowners Ass’n, Inc., 2026 NCBC Order 64.(Houston, J.). The Defendant there was moving to amend its Answer to add counterclaims. The first Answer had been filed only three months previously. An outer deadline for moving to amend pleadings had been previously set by the court as June 19, 2026. The defendant had filed its motion to amend on exactly that date.

Plaintiff objected to the proposed amendment on the grounds that the motion had been unduly delayed and had been submitted in bad faith.

You don't see much delay on the surface here, do you? But Defendant’s counsel dug its own hole on the delay issue by stating the following in its Motion:

Order ¶8 & n.3

Judge Houston dealt with that justification in a somewhat lengthy footnote:

The Court reminds counsel of their professional obligation under Rule 1.3 of the North Carolina Rules of Professional conduct to “act with reasonable diligence and promptness in representing a client.” N.C. R. Prof. Conduct 1.3; N.C. R. Prof. Conduct 1.3 cmt. 2 (“A lawyer’s work load must be controlled so that each matter can be handled competently.”) & cmt. 3 (“Perhaps no professional shortcoming is more widely resented than procrastination. A client's interests often can be adversely affected by the passage of time or the change of conditions. In extreme instances, as when a lawyer overlooks a statute of limitations, the client's legal position may be destroyed. Even when the client's interests are not affected in substance, however, unreasonable delay can cause a client needless anxiety and undermine confidence in the lawyer's trustworthiness.”). To the extent that counsel elected to take on more cases than their calendar and professional workload permit them to diligently manage, they should reevaluate these issues and advise their clients in advance of such matters;

Order ¶8 & n.3 (emphasis added).

If you think that this venom from Judge Houston was unjustified, be aware that the Defendant’s counsel had also failed to comply with BRC 7.3 by failing to confer with opposing counsel in advance of filing its Motion. The judge said that "the record is devoid of evidence of diligent, good-faith efforts to effectuate the necessary consultation under the rule.” Order ¶11. The only effort in that regard was a last-minute email sent by Defendant’s attorney before filing the Motion and then calling opposing counsel less than an hour before filing the motion.

It is worth mentioning that acquiring secured leave does not exempt an attorney from keeping up with his or her pending cases. All it does is protect the secured leave attorney from “appearing at any argument or other administrative proceeding during that secure leave period.” 26 N.C. Admin. Code 03 .0119. That includes being required to appear at a deposition, That’s per Rule 26(g) of the General Rules of Practice.

The Business Court pretty much did away with the standard procedure for filing and obtaining an order on a Motion to Compel per Rule 37 of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure when it adopted Business Court Rule 10.9 back in 2017.

The Business Court pretty much did away with the standard procedure for filing and obtaining an order on a Motion to Compel per Rule 37 of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure when it adopted Business Court Rule 10.9 back in 2017.

BRC 10.9 requires that the parties locked in the discovery dispute must make an extensive good faith effort to resolve the dispute. If that fails, the party seeking discovery email a summary of the dispute to the presiding Judge and his or her law clerk. The opposing party may submit its own summary of the dispute in the same manner and of the same length. Both summaries must include a certification “that, after personal consultation and diligent attempts to resolve differences, the parties could not resolve the dispute.” BCR 10.9)(b)(2). Specific detail as to the diligent attempts (such as the date(s) of the consultations, the attorneys involved, and the results achieved) must also be provided in the certification.

The presiding Judge has three options at this point. She can:

(1) schedule a telephone conference with counsel to discuss the dispute,

(2) order the parties to file a motion and brief regarding the dispute or provide additional materials, or

(30 issue an order that decides the issues raised or that provides the parties with further instructions

BCR 10.9(b)((3).

Then and only then, if the dispute is not resolved by a Court Order, a discovery motion can be filed and ruled upon by the Court. Strict briefing limits are imposed by BCR 10.9(c)

All this preamble about BCR 10.9 leads to Judge Earp's decision in United Therapeutics Corp. v. Roscigno, 2026 NCBC Order 62. The Defendants wanted to take the deposition of the Plaintiff's CEO. The Plaintiff wanted a protective order against the taking of the deposition. The parties pursued the summary procedure of BCR. After a telephone conference, Judge Earp denied Plaintiff's request for a Protective Order.

Plaintiffs, annoyed by this ruling, filed a “Motion for Limited Reconsideration” of the denial. They argued that they had evidence to support their position and that the Court should have required full briefing and a hearing before entering its discovery Order. Order ¶4.

Early in her Order, Judge Earp pointed out there are limited grounds for a Judge to reconsider a ruling. She said that “[m]otions to reconsider are not proper where the motion merely asks the court ‘to rethink what the Court had already thought through—rightly or wrongly.” Order ¶6 ((quoting Harsco Corp. v. Zlotnicki, 779 F.2d 906, 909 (3d Cir. 1985)). She also referenced the North Carolina Supreme Court’s decision in Value Health Solutions, Inc.v. Pharmaceutical Research Associates, Inc. In which the State’s high court affirmed a discovery ruling by Former Business Court Judge McGuire per BCR 10.9, decided without a full blown Rule 37 procedure.

Judge Earp then proceeded to shred the remaining arguments of the Plaintiff attempting to block the depositions of its CEO. First, she rejected the argument that her ruling at the rule 10.9 stage had "short-circuited their ability to present their best case.” Order ¶14, They claimed that they were stymied in their ability to present evidence in support of their position. But there is nothing in the Business Court Rules that prevents the submission of evidence on a 10.9 proceeding. The Plaintiff pointed to BCR 7.8, but that prohibits only "incorporating by reference arguments made" elsewhere. It does not speak to evidence. Order ¶16.

The Plaintiff also argued that this was a "complex discovery dispute” which required more than that which was allowed by the BCR 10.9 process. Order ¶17. This dispute was over whether Plaintiff's CEO could be deposed. Judge Earp scoffed at this argument and said that was not a “complex dispute.”

Plaintiff’s motion for reconsideration backfired on it somewhat, as Judge Earp ordered that the CEO be made available for a deposition no later than a specified date. Order ¶22.

One of the the Defendants in Mountain Girl Ventures, LLC v. Mary Annette, LLC, 2026 NCBC Order 59.(Houston, J.) moved to dissolve a Temporary Restraining Order that had been entered against it before the case was designated to the Business Court.

One of the the Defendants in Mountain Girl Ventures, LLC v. Mary Annette, LLC, 2026 NCBC Order 59.(Houston, J.) moved to dissolve a Temporary Restraining Order that had been entered against it before the case was designated to the Business Court.

Did the Defendant need to do that? No. Here are the facts: a presiding judge in Haywood County had entered a TRO against Defendant HP Investment Group Inc.enjoining it from proceeding with a foreclosure proceeding. The Judge ordered that the TRO entered on February 9, 2026 should remain in full force and effect until the April 6, 2026 term of Superior Court of Haywood County, at which time the Court would determine whether the TRO should continue as a preliminary injunction or be dissolved.

If you're not counting the days by which the Haywood County Judge extended the terms of the TRO, it was for nearly a two month period. And he'd had done that without the consent of the defendant as required by the terms of Rule 65(b) of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure.

Rule 65 provides that a TRO may only remain in effect for ten days, “unless within the time so fixed the order, for good cause shown, is extended for a like period or unless the party against whom the order is directed consents that it may be extended for a longer period.”

April 2026 came and went and the Defendant which was the target of the TRO apparently labored under the misapprehension that it was still bound up by the terms of the TRO.

Thus came before the Business Court the Defendant’s Motion to Dissolve the TRO. Judge Houston did not grant the Motion. What? Why not? He instead denied the Motion as moot since the TRO had already expired and been dissolved by its own terms and otherwise by operation of law (pointing to NCRCP Rule 65). Order ¶12.

Does the Business Court actually conduct jury trials? I don't know for sure, but the recent Order of Significance in Exela Pharma Scis., LLC v. REI Automation, Inc., 2026 NCBC Order 66 (Conrad, C.J.) was a ruling on a Motion In Limine in a case set for a jury trial to begin September 8, 2026. [Spoiler: it was settled shortly after the ruling on the Motion in Limine.]

Judge Conrad noted the “need for speed” in resolving this Motion given that the case was on the "cusp of trial” Op. ¶2 and 4 & n.2. He also pointed to the “imminent pretrial mediation.” Op. ¶2

The Motion in In Limine dealt with two main issues: the admissibility of parol evidence at the trial of this breach of contract action, and the admissibility of certain expert testimony.

The Parol Evidence Rule

You all remember the Parol Evidence Rule from your first year of law school. The North Carolina Court of Appeals defined it as follows:

The parol evidence rule, as frequently phrased, prohibits the admission of parol evidence to vary, add to, or contradict a written instrument. It is most often referred to as a rule of evidence but actually is one of substantive law. In substantive terms, the rule is stated as follows: "Any or all parts of a transaction prior to or contemporaneous with a writing intended to record them finally are superseded and made legally ineffective by the writing."

Van Harris Realty, Inc. v. Coffey, 254 S.E.2d 184, 41 N.C. App. 112 (1979).

It turns out that the “rule” (if it is one), is not even a rule of evidence, is not limited to oral (parol) evidence, and the North Carolina courts have been wildly inconsistent in its application.

The seminal Law Review article on the subject of the parol evidence rule in North Carolina was written by my friend, the late Professor Caroline Brown of UNC Law School. If you are interested in delving more into this subject, you can find her Article here.

The Uniform Commercial Code and the Parol Evidence Rule

You can forget about the common law parol evidence rule in the context of this Business Court ruling. The Uniform Commercial Code doesn't just tolerate the introduction of parole evidence to explain or supplement but not contradict) a written agreement, it embraces it. North Carolina's version of the UCC says that:

Final expression: parol or extrinsic evidence. Terms with respect to which the confirmatory memoranda of the parties agree or which are otherwise set forth in a record intended by the parties as a final expression of LAP there with me is that before but Kitty hour for all your hard exclude first midway between him to get there will agreement with respect to the terms included in it shall not be contradicted by evidence of any prior agreement or of a contemporaneous oral agreement but may be explained or supplemented by the following: (1) By course of dealing or usage of trade or by course of performance. (2) By evidence of consistent additional terms unless the court finds the record to have been intended also as a complete and exclusive statement of the terms of the agreement.

N.C. Gen. Stat. §25-2A-202. This is true even when a term is unambiguous. Op. ¶6.

The Daubert Motions

Also at play in the motions in limine were each side's motion to exclude the other side's expert. Defendant REI challenged the admissibility of Plaintiff’s expert on the grounds that it lacks sufficient qualifications to offer his testimony and that he had not relied upon sufficient facts and data making his testimony reliable. The defendant contended that this testimony did not meet the requirements of Rule of Evidence 702(a), that ‘the expert must be qualified’; and (3) ‘the testimony must be reliable.’ Order ¶18.

Judge Conrad rejected this argument stating that [d]ifferences in expertise bear chiefly on the weight to be assigned to the testimony by the trier of fact, not its admissibility.” Order ¶19.

He said that “this is, at most, a subject for cross-examination.” Order ¶19.

The attack on the data that the expert had relied on in reaching his opinions was dealt in much the same manner. Judge Conrad said that the party seeking to exclude the expert testimony could “highlight those weaknesses through effective cross-examination.” Order ¶20.

Why do I love a Motion in Limine?

I headed this post with I love writing about a Motion in Limine. Why I said that is such a motion can often be determinative on the eve of trial, or before a mediation, as this one was. In a portion of the Motion in Limine that I did not bother to discuss above, Judge Conrad ruled that the Plaintiff would be able to present evidence in support of its claim that it was entitled to seek to recover the more than $3 million that it paid to the Defendant in the course of its work. That involved designing the complicated piece of medical equipment that was the subject of the litigation (an aseptic, robotic intravenous bag filling system). The Defendant had sought to exclude evidence showing that the Plaintiff is entitled to recover the payments that it had made before canceling the contract.

Judge Conrad ruled that this evidence was admissible per G.S. §25-2-711(1) of North Carolina's Uniform Commercial Code, which says that when “the seller fails to make delivery” . . . then “the buyer may cancel” the contract, recover “so much of the price as has been paid,” and potentially seek additional remedies. Order ¶11 (emphasis added).

The Plaintiff was not home free on its quest to recover the $3 million plus, but it had an open door to present its evidence. That might have changed the settlement calculus

The rulings on the Motion in Limine most likely led to the case being taken off the trial calendar on August 17th upon the parties’ notification to the Court that they had settled the case

Judge Davis’ order in Gray Constr., Inc. v. Future Meat Techs., Inc., 2026 NCBC Order 63 (Davis, J.) almost didn't make the cut for this edition of the Newsletter. That's because it has only a limited range of interest — for lawyers practicing in the area of insolvency law. It's not by accident that the discussion of this case comes at the very end of this edition of the Newsletter. You really don't need to read any further if you don’t consider yourself something like a bankruptcy lawyer,

The case concerns North Carolina's Commercial Receivership Act (codified at G.S. §1-507.20. In particular, it involves the authority of a judge presiding over a receivership to modify the automatic stay imposed by the act.

The automatic stay is triggered by the filing of a Receivership Order, per G. S. §1 – 507.426(c). Like the Bankruptcy Act automatic stay provided for by 11 U.S.C. §362, the automatic stay prohibits certain collection actions against the Debtor. The two statutes are similar in that each allows the presiding Judge to modify the automatic stay “for cause.”

Judge Davis stepped into uncharted territory of what constitutes sufficient “cause” to allow a modification. Finding no definition in the Receivership Act, Judge Davis said that the grounds for modification must be “determined on a case-by-case basis.” Order ¶41. That’s not much guidance.

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