Zenobile v. McKecuen

In Zenobile v. McKecuen, 144 N.C. App. 104, 109, 548 S.E.2d 756, 759 (2001), the Court held, in part, that "the trial court's decision to rule on the defendant's motion to dismiss before ruling on plaintiff's motion for leave to amend constitutes reversible error." Id. However, in Zenobile the plaintiff filed a motion to amend before the defendant filed his motion to dismiss; the trial court failed to rule on the plaintiff's motion for approximately seven months. The plaintiff in Zenobile filed the motion to amend within the applicable statute of limitations. Finally, as the Court noted in Zenobile, "leave to amend a pleading may be properly denied under certain circumstances, including but not limited to undue delay, bad faith on the part of the movant, or undue prejudice to the opposing party by virtue of allowance of the amendment." Id.