Just In Case You Didn't (c) It The First Time

With respect to workplace injuries, The North Carolina Workers' Compensation Act is a legislative fix to a common law problem. The Act is sometimes called "the grand compromise" because it was crafted so as to balance the competing interests of industry and labor, to benefit society at large.

The Act is almost 100 years old, and during most of its life, the Act has hewed closely to its original purpose: to provide a swift, certain, and limited remedy for those work-related events that it covers. Notwithstanding the fact that the Act is a creature of statute, in the mid-1980s, North Carolina's judiciary expanded the Act's remedies dramatically, with decisions like Whitley, Gupton, and Peoples. These legal foundation for these opinions, and others too, rested upon very broad interpretations of the concepts of "disability" and "suitable employment."