{
  "id": 8519891,
  "name": "ABERDEEN WHITE, Plaintiff v. HUGH CHATHAM MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, INC., Defendant",
  "name_abbreviation": "White v. Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital, Inc.",
  "decision_date": "1990-01-16",
  "docket_number": "No. 8817SC821",
  "first_page": "130",
  "last_page": "133",
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    "name": "North Carolina Court of Appeals"
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  "last_updated": "2023-07-14T17:09:00.422652+00:00",
  "provenance": {
    "date_added": "2019-08-29",
    "source": "Harvard",
    "batch": "2018"
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  "casebody": {
    "judges": [
      "Judges Arnold and Johnson concur."
    ],
    "parties": [
      "ABERDEEN WHITE, Plaintiff v. HUGH CHATHAM MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, INC., Defendant"
    ],
    "opinions": [
      {
        "text": "PHILLIPS, Judge.\nPlaintiff\u2019s complaint alleging claims for breach of contract and for intentionally inflicting emotional distress was dismissed by an order of summary judgment under authority of Rule 56, N.C. Rules of Civil Procedure. The order is erroneous as to the breach of contract claim and correct as to the claim for intentionally inflicting emotional distress.\nThe affidavits and other materials before the court indicate in pertinent part that: Plaintiff was employed by defendant as a full-time nurses\u2019 assistant from March, 1951 to December, 1985 when she was discharged because of a disabling illness. The parties never had a written contract covering the employment. For several years before her dischage plaintiff was covered by the company\u2019s low cost group medical insurance plan that had limits of $1,000,000. In January, 1983 defendant distributed to its employees, including plaintiff, a \u201cPersonnel Policies Handbook,\u201d which stated that: \u201cA full time employee who becomes disabled during his employment will be able to maintain his group insurance.\u201d Plaintiff knew of the statement and became disabled while a full-time employee but was not permitted to continue her group medical insurance, as the policy of defendant\u2019s group carrier did not permit disabled former employees to continue under it. The individual policy that plaintiff was able to obtain costs more than the group policy, though its limits are only $100,000. Defendant\u2019s representation as to disabled employees being able to continue the group coverage was not withdrawn or disavowed before plaintiff became disabled. In denying that it was legally bound to make the coverage available and in discussing the matter with plaintiff defendant\u2019s employees were neither abusive nor demeaning but, as plaintiff testified in her deposition, were kind and considerate.\nObviously, the foregoing forecast of proof raises no genuine issue of material fact in the claim for intentionally inflicting emotional distress, Stanback v. Stanback, 297 N.C. 181, 254 S.E.2d 611 (1979), and that claim was properly dismissed. Since plaintiff did not argue otherwise in the brief she abandoned the claim in any event. Rule 28(a), N.C. Rules of Appellate Procedure.\nIt is equally clear, however, that the forecast of evidence does raise a genuine issue of fact as to plaintiff\u2019s claim for breach of contract. For the contract that plaintiff alleged and that her materials support is not a mutually binding bilateral employment contract, as the court and defendant mistakenly assumed, but a unilateral contract based upon defendant\u2019s offer of extra benefits to employees who continued in its employment until disabled and upon plaintiff accepting that offer by remaining in defendant\u2019s employment until she was disabled. Defendant\u2019s argument that the record contains no indication that after receiving the handbook plaintiff promised to continue her employment is irrelevant, since unilateral contracts are not based upon mutual promises or obligations as bilateral contracts are:\nA unilateral contract is one in which there is a promise on one side only, the consideration on the other side being executed ... It has also been defined as a promise by one party or an offer by him to do a certain thing in the event the other party performs a certain act ... .\n17 C.J.S. Contracts Sec. 8, pp. 578-579 (1963). As is deducible from the foregoing, the distinctive features of an unilateral contract are that the offeror is the master of his offer and can withdraw it at any time before it is accepted by performance, and that while the offer is still outstanding the offeree can accept it by meeting its conditions. Such contracts have been enforced by our courts in many cases involving circumstances similar to those recorded here. One such case is Brooks v. Carolina Telephone and Telegraph Co., 56 N.C. App. 801, 290 S.E.2d 370 (1982), where we held that plaintiff\u2019s suit for severance benefits unilaterally promised by the employer was not dismissible because the employer could have amended or withdrawn the offer before the employee met its conditions, but failed to do so; and another is Roberts v. Mays Mills, Inc., 184 N.C. 406, 114 S.E. 530 (1922), where an employer\u2019s promise to pay a bonus to all employees who remained continuously employed until Christmas was held to be enforceable.\nThe statement in defendant\u2019s personnel book concerning the additional benefits that disabled employees could enjoy if they remained in its full-time employment until they became disabled \u2014 seriously and responsibly made from all appearances \u2014 is evidence that it was an offer to make its group insurance available to any employee who met the conditions stated; and that plaintiff knew about the offer and continued in defendant\u2019s employment until she became disabled is evidence enough that she accepted the offer. Nor is it a legal defense to the claim, as defendant argues, that defendant\u2019s group carrier may have no policy that permits full-time employees who become disabled to continue under it. For the benefit represented can be supplied either by similar coverages by other carriers- or by money. If the contract was made it was certainly breached and defendant is obligated to pay the difference between the cost of the substitute coverage obtained and the cost of defendant\u2019s group coverage of $1,000,000 for one employee, which is the benefit that it stated would be available. That the substitute coverage obtained has limits less than $1,000,000 would not increase defendant\u2019s obligation as long as those limits cover her medical and hospital expenses, but upon the lesser limits ceasing to cover her medical expenses defendant\u2019s obligation would increase accordingly up to the difference between the limits and $1,000,000.\nAffirmed in part; reversed in part; and remanded.\nJudges Arnold and Johnson concur.",
        "type": "majority",
        "author": "PHILLIPS, Judge."
      }
    ],
    "attorneys": [
      "Mills & Rives, by G. Wilborn Rives, for plaintiff appellant.",
      "R. Lewis Alexander and R. Lewis Alexander, Jr., for defendant appellee."
    ],
    "corrections": "",
    "head_matter": "ABERDEEN WHITE, Plaintiff v. HUGH CHATHAM MEMORIAL HOSPITAL, INC., Defendant\nNo. 8817SC821\n(Filed 16 January 1990)\nMaster and Servant \u00a7 8 (NCI3d)\u2014 personnel policies handbook\u2014 insurance coverage after employee disabled \u2014 unilateral contract\nDefendant\u2019s personnel policies handbook which stated that a full time employee who became disabled during his employment would be able to maintain his group insurance constituted a unilateral contract based upon defendant\u2019s offer of extra benefits to employees who continued in its employment until disabled and plaintiff\u2019s acceptance of that offer by remaining in defendant\u2019s employment until she was disabled, and the trial court therefore erred in granting summary judgment for defendant on plaintiff\u2019s breach of contract claim.\nAm Jur 2d, Insurance \u00a7 1852; Master and Servant \u00a7\u00a7 15, 127.\nAPPEAL by plaintiff from Brown, Frank R., Judge. Order entered 9 May 1988 in Superior Court, SURRY County. Heard in the Court of Appeals 14 March 1989.\nMills & Rives, by G. Wilborn Rives, for plaintiff appellant.\nR. Lewis Alexander and R. Lewis Alexander, Jr., for defendant appellee."
  },
  "file_name": "0130-01",
  "first_page_order": 158,
  "last_page_order": 161
}