497 (1992) (quoting McClure v. State, 267 N.C. 212, 215, 148 S.E.2d 15, 17-18 (1966)). In other words, an indictment must allege every element of an offense in order to confer subject matter jurisdiction on the court. While the State concedes the correctness of the foregoing principles of North Carolina law, it argues that the rule that a failure to allege each and every element of an offense is a jurisdictional defect is “antiquated” and followed by only a small minority of states. The State urges that we should reject the earlier rulings. We are, however, not free to do so, as this Court has no authority to overrule or otherwise disturb established precedent. Kinlaw v. Long Mfg., 40 N.C. App. 641, 643, 253 S.E.2d 629, 630, rev’d on other grounds, 298 N.C. 494, 259 S.E.2d 552 (1979) (<HOLDING>). Since the indictment for first degree rape
holding that it is not our prerogative to overrule or ignore clearly written decisions of our supreme court holding that because the contract dispute between the parties in this case constitutes a justiciable matter that is cognizable in our trial courts our courts had subject matter jurisdiction holding that the court of appeals lacks the authority to overrule decisions of the supreme court of north carolina and has a responsibility to follow those decisions until otherwise ordered by the supreme court recognizing that our supreme court does not overrule binding precedent sub silentio and noting that because an appellate court opinion did not mention a contradicting supreme court decision the conflict between the two decisions was not called to the attention of the court which denied review of the appellate decision holding that directly applicable supreme court decisions require this court to overrule its prior holdings