The Burke County Board of Education's case against the Burke County commissioners will not start as expected in a local courtroom.
Lawyers for the school board filed more motions late Friday afternoon, including one that asks for Judge Robert C. Ervin to be replaced as the presiding judge.
Burke County Superior Court will open at 10 a.m. in the downtown Morganton courthouse, but Clerk of Court Mabel Lowman said she does not expect Judge Ervin to take any action on the school board's case until the motion for his replacement is heard.
Judge Forrest Donald Bridges of Shelby will receive the motion and hear the lawyers' arguments at 3 p.m. in the Lincoln County Courthouse, 1 Courthouse Square at the junction of highways 27 and 321 in Lincolnton, which is about 40 miles southeast of Morganton.
Lincoln County is in Judicial District 27B (Cleveland and Lincoln counties).
Burke County is in District 25B (Burke, Catawba and Caldwell counties).
The Burke County school board's attorneys, Jon Jones of Morganton and Schwartz and Shaw of Raleigh, previously filed a motion to move the case out of Burke County or, as an alternative, to have an out-of-county jury impaneled here. That motion will be one of the first argued before whatever judge hears the case.
The county commissioners hired Larry D. McMahon Jr. of Byrd Byrd Ervin McMahon and Denton in Morganton as their special counsel. McMahon could not be reached Sunday evening for comment about the motion involving Judge Ervin.
Ervin, who lives in Morganton, is a grandson of the late Sen. Sam Ervin and son of Betty Ervin (a retired Freedom High School social-studies teacher) and the late Judge Sam J. Ervin III. He earned his bachelor's degree from Davidson College and his law degree from Harvard University. He was admitted to the bar in 1985 and practiced in the areas of personal injury, civil litigation and criminal litigation. Voters elected him to the Superior Court bench in 2002.
The Burke County commissioners' attorney, Redmond Dill, said he will ask for a jury trial and Clerk of Court Mabel Lowman said Friday that her office summoned 100 potential jurors to be on hand at 1:30 p.m. today.
Lowman said the potential jurors still must be at the courthouse at that time. Criminal cases were to be heard during this session of Superior Court until the schools' case took precedence. Lowman said she expects Judge Ervin will proceed today with selection of jurors for criminal cases.
The Burke County school board's lawsuit asks the court to determine the amount of money the county should provide to operate the schools and to order the county commissioners to pay it.
In a similar 2008 case, a Duplin County jury awarded an additional $4.8 million to the Duplin County Schools. The county commissioners appealed the case to the N.C. Court of Appeals, where it is awaiting judgment.
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