A plaintiff's failure to exhaust administrative remedies is grounds for dismissal because it deprives the court of subject matter jurisdiction. Steward v. Green, 189 N.C. App. 131, 133, 657 S.E.2d 719, 721 (2008). Thus, a motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust administrative remedies is equivalent to a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 150B-43 (2009), u[a]ny person who is aggrieved by the final decision in a contested case, and who has exhausted all administrative remedies made available to him by statute or agency rule, is entitled to judicial review of the decision under this Article[.]" In order to have standing under this statute, "`(1) the petitioner must be an aggrieved party; (2) there must be a final agency decision; (3) the decision must result from a contested case; (4) the petitioner must have exhausted all administrative remedies; and (5) there must be no other adequate procedure for judicial party'" Steward v. Green, 189 N.C. App. 131, 136, 657 S.E.2d 719, 722 (2008) (quoting In re Rulemaking Petition of Wheeler, 85 N.C. App. 150, 153, 354 S.E.2d 374, 376 (1987)) (emphasis added). A "`[p]erson aggrieved' means any person or group of persons of common interest directly or indirectly affected substantially in his or its person, property, or employment by an administrative decision."