GREENSBORO, N.C. — The company behind North Carolina’s digital court records system would pay up to $1.5 million to people who were wrongly arrested or kept in jail too long because of software problems, under a proposed class-action settlement filed Monday in federal court.
Plaintiffs asked a federal court in the state’s middle district to sign off on the deal with Tyler Technologies. The Texas company built eCourts, also called Odyssey, under a contract with the state judicial branch administrative office. The $1.5 million is a ceiling for paying valid claims. Tyler would cover lawyer fees, service awards and the cost of notifying people and running the settlement on top of that, bringing the total value to roughly $2.14 million.
The proposal sets two groups. A person arrested in error would receive $2,800 per arrest. Someone kept behind bars longer than six hours past the point they qualified for release would get $500, plus $350 for every additional hour, with any one person capped at $5,000.
Tyler does not admit wrongdoing and has argued in court that its software did not cause the harms people described. Lawyers for the plaintiffs told the court the settlement avoids years more of costly and uncertain litigation.
Nothing is final yet. A federal judge must give preliminary approval before notices go out and a claims window opens, and final approval would follow a hearing. No claim deadline has been set.
The suit, filed in 2023, describes people held for days or weeks longer than necessary and others arrested more than once on the same warrant, even after charges were dropped. The system debuted in four counties, Wake, Johnston, Harnett and Lee, during the first months of 2023 and later rolled out statewide.
The deal does not end the case. Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden remains a defendant, as does the insurance company that covers him. U.S. District Judge William Osteen let the suit go forward against Tyler and McFadden in a March 2025 order, while dismissing the Wake County sheriff. In 2024 the plaintiffs also let go of claims they had brought against senior state judicial administrators, a trio of Superior Court clerks and the sheriff of Lee County.
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