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35 N.C. App. 643

Ridge v. Wright

Court of Appeals of North Carolina

Decided March 21, 1978

Court of Appeals of North Carolina · decided 1978-03-21

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently October 1999

4 state decisions

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“Service of such process shall be made in the following manner: (1) By leaving a copy thereof, with a fee of three dollars ($3.00), in the hands of the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles, or in his office. Such service, upon compliance with the other provisions of this section, shall be sufficient service on defendant. (Emphasis added.) (2) Notice of such service of process and copy thereof must be forthwith sent by registered mail by plaintiff or the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles to the defendant, and the entries on the defendant’s return receipt shall be sufficient evidence of the date on which notice of service upon the Commissioner of Motor Vehicles and copy of process were delivered to the defendant, on which date service on defendant shall he deemed completed. (Emphasis added.) (3) The defendant’s return receipt . . . together with the plaintiff’s affidavit of compliance with the provisions of this section, must be appended to the summons or other process and filed with said summons, complaint and other papers in the cause.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including Quattrone v. Rochester

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1978-03-21

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

ARNOLD, Judge.

¶1By this appeal defendants again assign as error the failure of the trial court to grant their motions to dismiss or, in the alternative, to quash the return of summons. First, defendants contend that G.S. 1-105, which deals in part with service upon nonresident drivers of motor vehicles, required plaintiff, upon the return of “unclaimed” papers to defendant Wright, to send the letter to Wright by ordinary mail. G.S. 1-105(3) reads:

“The defendant’s return receipt, or the original envelope bearing a notation by the postal authorities that receipt was refused, and an affidavit by the plaintiff that notice of mailing the registered letter and refusal to accept was forthwith sent to the defendant by ordinary mail, together with the plaintiff’s affidavit of compliance with the provisions of this section, must be appended to the summons or other process and filed with said summons, complaint and other papers in the cause.”

¶2According to their interpretation of this section defendants equate a receipt that was refused with one that was unclaimed. This interpretation, however, flies in the face of the ordinary words of the statute and is rejected. A reading of G.S. 1-105(2) shows that the legislature addressed both a refusal to accept a registered letter and non-delivery of an unclaimed registered letter. We read the requirement in G.S. 1-105(3) that a refused registered letter be sent by ordinary mail to apply only to those letters which were in fact “refused.”

¶3Defendants’ second argument is that a returned letter marked “moved, not forwardable” should also be treated as a letter which has been refused. For the reasons already stated, we do not accept this interpretation of G.S. 1-105.

¶4The final argument by defendants is that this Court in Ridge v. Wright, supra, did not comtemplate that, on remand, the trial *646court would consider plaintiffs’ affidavits of compliance with G.S. 1-105. G.S. 1-105(3), of course, requires that plaintiffs append affidavits of compliance with G.S. 1-105 to the summons and file such affidavits with other papers in the cause. In reviewing this Court’s action in Ridge v. Wright, supra, we conclude that the cause was remanded for the very purpose of allowing the trial court to review the motions in light of plaintiffs’ affidavits. We, therefore, find no error in the trial court’s denial of defendants’ motions.

¶5Affirmed.

Judges Morris and Martin concur.
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