North Carolina: No Jurisdiction for Out-of-State Injury Where “Last Act” in Making Employment Contract Occurred Outside State

Where a welder, who was living in North Carolina, received a communication from her union hall, which was located in Oklahoma, that she should report for an assignment in Huntsville, Texas and where, upon arrival in Texas, the welder was required to undergo a drug test and complete various forms—including an authorization for a background check—before she could begin working, under North Carolina’s “last act” test, her employment contract was made in Texas, and not in North Carolina. The North Carolina Industrial Commission did not have jurisdiction to hear her injury claim since her injury occurred outside North Carolina. The court noted that had she not undergone the drug test, she would not have been hired. Moreover, she began work within to hours of taking the test. Submission to the drug test was more than an administrative formality. There was the risk that she would not pass the test. The binding contract did not take place in North Carolina.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Holmes v. Associated Pipe Line Contrs., 2017 N.C. App. LEXIS 52 (Feb. 7, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 143.03.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law