Nearly three years after a Sylva woman was found dead  in the Jackson County Detention Center, the county has agreed to pay $725,000 to settle the resulting wrongful death lawsuit. 

A group of homeowners calling themselves the “Save Highlands Committee” has filed a legal complaint against the Town of Highlands for its decision to enforce a ban of short-term rentals within the R-1 residential area. 

Discussions going on right now in the town of Highlands are the same discussions happening across the nation as the short-term rental industry continues to grow, leaving little room for the local workforce and changing the housing landscape of the community. 

A group of Western North Carolina residents has filed a class action lawsuit against Mission Health System and its parent corporation HCA Healthcare, claiming the health care giants are operating a monopoly that violates North Carolina’s antitrust and consumer protection laws. 

Two of Swain County’s largest tourism brands — Nantahala Outdoor Center and Great Smoky Mountains Railroad — are engaged in a lawsuit regarding right-of-way access over the railroad tracks. 

The first students moved into The Husk at Western Carolina University last August, but nearly a year later the companies responsible for developing, designing and building the environmentally disastrous  Millennial Campus student housing development are embroiled in a complex lawsuit that has left at least one local subcontractor facing a six-figure deficit until the situation resolves. 

A group of concerned citizens conducting a local cleanup effort intended to address the problem of homelessness in Waynesville inadvertently exacerbated the problem when they dismantled an elaborate makeshift residence, and now the man who’s been put out on the streets with nothing but the clothes on his back is pursuing legal action against those who threw away or gave away all of his earthly belongings. 

The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is appealing an April 16 decision from District Court Judge James A. Boasberg that paved the way for the Catawba Indian Nation to develop a casino in Cleveland County.

Seventeen employees at University of North Carolina System schools — including two from Western Carolina University — are suing the university system and Gov. Roy Cooper in a class-action lawsuit demanding a halt to plans to resume residential instruction until such instruction can take place safely. 

Four months after the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians filed suit against the U.S. Department of the Interior’s decision to allow the Catawba Indian Nation to move forward with plans for a casino in Kings Mountain, the DOI has officially taken the land into trust and the Catawba have broken ground on the site. However, the EBCI is still fighting the decision, on July 6 submitting a new, amended complaint in the case.