The North Carolina Court of Appeals split, 2-1, Wednesday in rejecting a lawsuit challenging the removal of a Confederate monument from the Pitt County courthouse. The decision upheld a trial judge’s 2024 decision in the case.
County officials removed the monument from the courthouse property in June 2020 after it was damaged during a local protest.
The Appeals Court’s majority ruled that none of the seven individual plaintiffs nor two groups —Sons of the Confederate Veterans and United Daughters of the Confederacy — had legal standing to bring the lawsuit against Pitt County officials’ decision.
“As discussed previously and throughout this opinion, the individual plaintiffs are unable to establish taxpayer standing, and have failed to allege or establish standing on any other rights, injuries, or legally protected interests,” wrote Judge John Arrowood. “Accordingly, the plaintiff associations fail to satisfy the first requirement that its individuals would otherwise have standing. Although we acknowledge the purpose of the plaintiff organizations are for historical, benevolent, memorial, and educational programs, plaintiffs have failed to identify a legally protected interest in the monument. The amended complaint was properly dismissed for lack of representational standing.”
Nor could the plaintiffs sue Pitt County for violating the state’s Monument Protection Act, Arrowood wrote. “Although plaintiffs argue defendant’s action was illegal under N.C.G.S. § 100-2.1, plaintiffs have asserted no legal or factual injury, or other legal interest, that establishes standing to pursue a private cause of action under the statute,” he wrote. “Plaintiffs’ amended complaint fails to establish standing to prosecute a claim under N.C.G.S. § 100-2.1 and was properly dismissed.”
“Plaintiffs assert the exclusion of Southern identity and heritage by way of acting to relocate the monument ‘is quite simply a form of discrimination,’” Arrowood wrote. Yet “plaintiffs failed to identify any legal rights conferred by the North Carolina Constitution that were deprived by defendant’s conduct.”
The majority also rejected the argument that the trial judge should have issued findings of fact defending the decision to dismiss the case.
Judge Jeff Carpenter joined Arrowood’s opinion. Judge John Tyson dissented.
“The majority’s opinion incorrectly holds Plaintiffs’ request for findings of fact being denied by the trial court was not prejudicial error, concludes Plaintiffs lack standing, and affirms the trial court’s order. I vote to vacate and remand the order dismissing Plaintiffs’ complaint,” Tyson wrote.
“Defendant unlawfully removed the tombstone and Memorial and placed it in storage,” Tyson argued. “The Board voted to donate the tombstone and Memorial to Commemorating Honor, Inc. on 15 April 2024.” The monument was to “be relocated away from Pitt County only for display at Valor Memorial Park in Davidson County or Lee-Jackson Memorial Park in Rockbridge County, Virginia.”
“The record shows the Monument is a memorial and tombstone located on public property which commemorates military service that is part of North Carolina’s history,” Tyson explained. “The Monument is clearly the type of object intended to be protected by our General Assembly when it enacted the Monument Protection Law.”
Tyson addressed the issue of a trial judge’s findings of fact.
“The majority’s opinion baldly concludes the request for findings of fact being denied by the trial court was not error because ‘the primary question in this case and upon the motion to dismiss is whether the plaintiffs had standing to pursue their claims,’” Tyson wrote. “The majority’s assertion ‘[t]he omission of written findings of fact from the trial court’s order did not prevent or otherwise constrain our ability to conduct a de novo review of the amended complaint’ is wholly untrue in this case.”
“All Plaintiffs clearly alleged sufficient facts and interests to establish standing to challenge Defendant’s unlawful actions to remove a war grave marker and memorial under the statute,” Tyson added. “The trial court failed to make requested and required findings and conclusions on the record. This failure prevents this Court from determining whether the content and format of Plaintiffs’ objections comported with the requirements to establish taxpayer standing.”
Tyson would have vacated the trial judge’s ruling and sent the case back “to make supported findings and conclusions regarding these allegations and objections and whether they are sufficient to confer standing to the individual and entity Plaintiffs.”
The post Appeals Court rejects Pitt County Confederate monument lawsuit appeared first on Carolina Journal.