- The North Carolina Court of Appeals has tossed out a trial judge's ruling favoring a private police contractor in a dispute with the state Department of Justice.
- The legal battle focused on a private police company's use of blue lights while conducting traffic control work for a highway contractor working on Interstate 77 in the Charlotte area.
- Southeastern Company Police complained that a DOJ employee exceeded his authority and violated the company's rights. An administrative law judge had ruled against the contractor. A Superior Court had reversed that decision and ruled against the DOJ.
The North Carolina Court of Appeals has tossed out a trial judge’s ruling favoring a private police contractor in a dispute with the state Department of Justice. The legal fight focused on the contractor’s use of blue lights while its vehicles guided traffic during Interstate 77 construction work.
The unanimous Appeals Court ruling Wednesday will send the case back to an administrative law judge to gather more information.
In 2016, contractor Sugar Creek Construction hired the private firm Southeastern Company Police to help with policing services and traffic control for a 26-mile I-77 construction project in the Charlotte area.
In March 2017, the operations manager of a Charlotte-based private security agency contacted Randy Munn, DOJ’s company police administrator. In an email, the security agency employee complained that two Southeastern vehicles were using flashing blue and red lights on the sides of travel lanes at various points in the construction project.
Southeastern is the plaintiff in the Appeals Court case. The DOJ and Munn are defendants.
“Defendant Munn informed both Plaintiff and SCC that Plaintiff’s officers were limited to working inside of any barricaded work zones of the construction area and that it would violate the Act for a company police agency to utilize blue lights to block the travel lanes on a state-maintained highway,” Judge Valerie Zachary wrote for a unanimous three-judge Appeals Court panel. “Defendant Munn also warned that the potential punishment for such a violation could include an immediate revocation of Plaintiff’s certification as a company police agency under the [Company Police] Act.”
Southeastern removed its officers from the site, but the dispute led to “multiple lawsuits in state and federal courts,” Zachary wrote. In the current case, Southeastern “claimed that Defendant Munn deprived Plaintiff of rights and property; exceeded the scope of his authority; acted arbitrarily, capriciously, and erroneously; and failed to act as required by law.”
An administrative law judge ruled against the private police company in 2022. A Superior Court judge reversed the decision and found in favor of Southeastern in August 2023.
“In that Plaintiff has never claimed that it owned or had possession and control of the relevant portion of I-77, this case necessarily hinges upon whether the party with whom Plaintiff contracted — namely, SCC — owned or had possession and control of that property,” Zachary explained. “Significantly, however, the superior court never expressly found or concluded that SCC had such ownership, possession, or control, although the court made a series of findings and conclusions regarding other important procedural and legal issues in this matter.”
Language in the agreement governing the I-77 project “strongly suggests” that neither SCC nor the project’s main contractor, Mobility Partners, ever gained ownership, possession, or control “that the Act requires in order to sanction Plaintiff’s policing activity in this case,” Zachary wrote.
Neither federal highway construction regulations nor SCC’s contract gave Southeastern employees authority to work beyond the Company Police Act’s restrictions, Zachary added.
“SCC’s contractual obligation to provide traffic control does not furnish blanket authorization for any agency with whom SCC contracted to provide that traffic control,” she explained. “If a company police agency was engaged to provide such services, it would still have to comply with the limited jurisdictional authority granted by the Act. Accordingly, it does not necessarily follow that the contract did (or could) authorize Plaintiff’s actions in this case.”
“It is well settled that a contract cannot authorize a party to violate the law,” she added.
“The polestar of the jurisdictional analysis for the question presented by this case is whether SCC had the requisite ownership, possession, or control of the I-77 HOT Lanes Project work zone sufficient for SCC to permit Plaintiff to provide the policing services in question consistent with the Act,” Zachary wrote. “Because the superior court did not answer this question and, as a result, demonstrated a misunderstanding of the law at issue in this case, we cannot say that the court properly applied the … standard of review.”
Now an administrative law judge “shall consider the contract between NCDOT and SCC, as well as the applicable federal regulations, in determining the scope of Plaintiff’s jurisdiction,” the Appeals Court opinion explained.
Judges John Arrowood and Fred Gore joined Zachary’s opinion.