NC appeals court: Woman brain damaged stopping Enka fight could get big compensation

A former teacher severely injured trying to stop a 2013 Enka High School fight is battling a state commission on how she'll get nearly $1 million in compensation, and a state appellate court is siding with her.

A three-judge panel in the North Carolina Court of Appeals on March 1 filed a ruling that vacated an N. C. Industrial Commission’s decision to deny 46-year-old Carmela Blackwell a lump-sum disability payment and told it to go back to the drawing board.

Blackwell, according to appeals court documents, was “injured while on the job breaking up a fight. She was diagnosed with numerous physical and mental injuries.”

"The decision bodes well for Mrs. Blackwell," said her attorney, Asheville-based Tom Ramer, who noted the severity of her injuries weren't fully realized in the appeal ruling.

"This is a complete reversal of the Industrial Commission. And it says that they got it wrong. That they misinterpreted the law and the Court of Appeals is sending it back to them with specific instructions on how they should handle it."

The fight happened April 3, 2013, and Blackwell suffered numerous injuries when she intervened, including damage to a hip, her knees, her back, a shoulder and her head.

She was later diagnosed with seizure disorder, migraine headaches, post-concussion syndrome, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, court documents show.

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Since she worked at Enka High School, she was employed in 2013 by Buncombe County Schools, a part of the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. Both are named as defendants in the case.

The defendants, who had insurance, admitted liability for Blackwell’s injuries, according to Industrial Commission documents filed in 2019.

Those documents note that ― when Blackwell was 43 ― she was owed $574 a week for another 35.6 years, or a total $1.06 million before the end of her life.

The N. C. Industrial Commission found Blackwell had been “permanently and totally disabled” during the fight intervention and agreed to give her weekly benefits shortly after the incident.

Years after the incident, Blackwell requested her benefits be put into a single, lump-sum payment instead of being distributed over more than 35 years.

That request was denied by the Industrial Commission, and Blackwell worked with legal counsel to appeal her case.

The March 1 ruling by appellate court Judge Chris Dillon — supported by judges Donna Stroud and John Tyson — said the Industrial Commission should reconsider its denial and that Blackwell might be allowed a lump-sum payout according to state law.

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“The Commission erred in concluding that a lump-sum award under Section 97- 44 is never allowed where the sum of future installments is uncertain,” the ruling stated, referring to the N.C. law under which Blackwell argued she could be paid all at once instead of over time.

The Commission had denied Blackwell’s request based on “its belief that a lump-sum award was not allowed in any situation where the number of future payments was not certain, as is the case here,” according to the ruling’s analysis of the case.

Since it wasn’t certain how long Blackwell would actually live, the money should be handed out weekly for approximately 35 years instead of all at once, the Industrial Commission contended, latching on to a clause in the N.C. Worker’s Compensation Act that stipulated no one can be paid more than future sum they are owed: Paying out the $1.06 million before knowing how long Blackwell would live might result in overpayment.

This specifically applies in “unusual” cases, according to N.C. law cited in the appeal.

Putting the matter back into the Industrial Commission’s hands, the court ordered it to reconsider Blackwell’s case and decide if it was truly “unusual.”

“Should the Commission deem that Plaintiff has met her burden in this regard, the Commission may consider any competent evidence,” the ruling stated, “to determine the number of installments that Plaintiff is expected to receive under her current award. In calculating the lump-sum award, the Commission may discount the expected future installments to a present value.”

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Ramer also said a case of this nature was somewhat unprecedented in the state and that the family hoped it would set a precedent for others like it in the future.

"Mr. and Mrs. Blackwell are very pleased about the ruling, that she is to put an end to at least part of her claim and move forward in her life. But they're also happy about the decision in that it will provide other generally profoundly injured folks with the same opportunity to put the claim behind them and move forward in life," Ramer said.

Andrew Jones is Buncombe County government and health care reporter for the Asheville Citizen Times, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at @arjonesreports on Facebook and Twitter, 828-226-6203 or arjones@citizentimes.com. Please help support this type of journalism with a subscription to the Citizen Times.

This article originally appeared on Asheville Citizen Times: Former teacher hurt stopping Enka High fight could get single payout