Where North Carolina requires any foreign insurance company to appoint a state official as the company’s legal agent for service of process to conduct business in the State, the company is deemed to have consented to a North Carolina court exercising general personal jurisdiction over it.  Harris Teeter Supermarkets, Inc. v. Ace American Insurance Co, 2023 NCBC 68 (J. Robinson). Such arrangement satisfies the due process requirements of North Carolina’s long arm statute. See Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co., ___ U.S. ____, 143 S.Ct. 2028 (2023).

Plaintiffs brought declaratory judgment actions against their insurance carriers to determine duties the carriers owed under Plaintiffs’ policies related to lawsuits seeking damages for Plaintiffs’ allegedly improper distribution and dispensing of opioid drugs. (Opinion, ¶4). The insurance companies all filed motions to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(2), contending the Business Court could not properly exercise personal jurisdiction over them without violating their due process rights inasmuch as they had few, if any, contacts with the State of North Carolina.

The Business Court disagreed.  In determining whether it could properly exercise personal jurisdiction over the foreign insurance companies so as to comply with due process requirements, the Business Court recognized that North Carolina required any foreign insurance company seeking to do business in North Carolina to appoint the Commissioner of Insurance as its agent for service of process.  G.S. §58-16-5. (Opinion, ¶91-92).  Relying on the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Mallory, wherein SCOTUS held that such a requirement meant the complying company had necessarily consented to general personal jurisdiction in that State (i.e., Missouri) (Id., ¶¶89-90), the Business Court held that all of the insurance companies that had likewise satisfied G.S. §58-16-5 necessarily consented to personal jurisdiction in North Carolina.  (Id., ¶95).  Given this consent, the Business Court held that it could properly exercise jurisdiction over those insurance companies without offending their due process rights.  Id.

Based upon this decision, any foreign company which was required to appoint an agent inside the State of North Carolina in order to conduct business here should be aware that it may have consented to personal jurisdiction in North Carolina.