Justia U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Following a state court judgment of over six million dollars entered against NHF in Texas, NHF filed a voluntary petition in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, seeking to reorganize under Chapter 11 of the Bankruptcy Code. At issue was were the circumstances under which a bankruptcy court could approve nondebtor release, injunction, and exculpation provisions as part of a final plan of reorganization under Chapter 11. The court held that equitable relief provisions of the type approved in this case were permissible in certain circumstances. A bankruptcy court must, however, find facts sufficient to support its legal conclusion that a particular debtor's circumstances entitled it to such relief. Because the bankruptcy court in this case failed to make such findings, the district court erred in affirming the bankruptcy court's confirmation order. Accordingly, the court vacated the judgment of the district court and remanded for further proceedings. View "Behrmann, et al. v. Nat'l Heritage Foundation, et al." on Justia Law

Defendant entered a conditional plea of guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Defendant subsequently appealed the denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained during a stop-and-frisk in a deserted gas station parking lot in the wee hours of the morning. The court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion and held that the officers had a reasonable suspicion to justify the stop-and-frisk. View "United States v. Glover" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued defendant alleging that its negligent care following the Caesarean section delivery of her baby injured her. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court abused its discretion by allowing an obstetrician-gynecologist (OB/GYN) to testify as an expert regarding the standard of care for a nurse's postpartum monitoring of a high-risk patient with preeclampsia. Because neither the statute nor Virginia case law precluded the expert testimony at issue, the court found no abuse of discretion and affirmed the judgment. View "Creekmore v. Maryview Hospital" on Justia Law

CGM, a billing agent for competitive local exchange carriers (competitive LECs), brought a declaratory judgment action against BellSouth, an incumbent local exchange carrier (incumbent LEC). CGM claimed that BellSouth offered long-term promotional discounts to its own customers but failed, in violation of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 47 U.S.C. 251(c)(2), 251(c)(4), and rules implementing it, to pass the full value of those discounts on to CGM's client competitive LECs, none of which was a party to the suit. Because CGM had no statutory standing under either the 1996 Act or a seemingly broadly worded but nonetheless inapplicable statute from the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. 401(b), the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of CGM's complaint. View "CGM, LLC v. BellSouth Telecommunication, et al." on Justia Law

This case involved a widow's claim for survivors' benefits under the Black Lung Benefits Act (BLBA), 30 U.S.C. 901-944, as amended by the the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), Pub. L. No. 111-148, Section 1556, 124 Stat. 119, 260. The PPACA amendments revived Section 422(l) of the BLBA, 30 U.S.C. 932(l), which provided that an eligible survivor of a miner who was receiving benefits at the time of his death was automatically entitled to survivors' benefits without having to establish that the miner's death was due to pneumoconiosis. Relying on an amended section 932(l), the Benefits Review Board, ruled that the miner's widow was entitled to survivors' benefits. On appeal, petitioner raised a variety of constitutional and statutory challenges to the PPACA's restoration provision. The court held that because retroactive application of amended Section 932(l) was hardly arbitrary or irrational, petitioner's substantive due process argument was unavailing. Because amended Section 932(l) merely required petitioner to pay money - and thus did not infringe a specific, identifiable property interest - the Takings Clause was not applicable. The court also held that the miner's widow was derivatively entitled to survivors' benefits pursuant to Section 932(l). Finally, because petitioner made its contention, that 30 U.S.C. 901, 921(a), and 922(a)(2) prevented the miner's widow from receiving automatic survivors' benefits, for the first time at oral argument, the court held that it was waived. Accordingly, the judgment of the Board was affirmed. View "West Virginia CWP Fund v. Stacy" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted in a jury trial of three offenses related to his possession of child pornography. On appeal, defendant argued that the search warrant that led to his arrest was invalid; that a jury instruction involving the term "obscene" was erroneous because it lacked a knowledge requirement; and that his sentence was imposed in violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. The court held, pursuant to United States v. Leon, that the district court did not err in denying defendant's motion to suppress. The court also held that the district court did not give the jury an erroneous instruction because the jury was not required to find that defendant knew that the images at issue were obscene. The court further held that defendant's sentence was not unconstitutional where the harshness of defendant's penalty reflected the gravity of his crimes and, as the district court correctly noted, the severity of defendant's sentence was based on his recidivism. The ten-year sentence for Count Two was also proportional to other sentences because this sentence was mandated by statute. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "United States v. Wellman" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to armed robbery and was sentenced to 90 months' imprisonment. At issue was whether the district court erred in sentencing defendant when it applied a two-level enhancement "if any person was physically restrained to facilitate the commission of the offense or to facilitate escape" under U.S.S.G. 2B3.1(b)(4)(B). The court held that the district court properly applied the enhancement where the two bank tellers ordered to the floor at gunpoint were prevented from both leaving the bank and thwarting the bank robbery.

Defendant was convicted of several offenses related to the sale of cocaine base to a government informant (Jackson) and subsequent efforts to have Jackson murdered. Defendant raised several issues on appeal. The court affirmed the denial of defendant's Motion for Judgment of Acquittal with respect to the conspiracy to distribute and possess a controlled substance with intent to distribute count and concluded that the jury could find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant had a continuous buy-sell relationship with Maryland suppliers to bring their drugs to market in Virginia. The court also concluded that the district court did not err when it denied defendant a jury instruction on entrapment where a fellow inmate (Johnson) was not a government informant at the time that the discussion about doing away with Jackson began and there was ample evidence in the record from which a jury could find that defendant was predisposed to prevent Jackson from testifying. The court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's Motion for Judgment of Acquittal as to solicitation to commit murder for hire where the record showed that defendant clearly wrote to his many girlfriends seeking help in his murder for hire scheme. The court further concluded that there was sufficient evidence to convict him of being a felon in possession of a firearm and the district court did not err by denying defendant's motion for a separate trial on this count. The court finally concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied defendant's Motion for Change of Counsel and the district court did not abuse its discretion by improperly considering his prior felony conviction when calculating his sentence. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

Defendant was convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit securities registration violations, securities fraud, and wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371, and nine counts of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. 1343. Defendant raised several issues on appeal. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in its ruling on defendant's motion in limine and when regulating the testimony of two expert witnesses during trial. Because the relevant legal regimes were complex, it assisted the jury to have them explained. The court also concluded that the district court acted well within its broad discretion in admitting lay opinion testimony of two co-conspirators under Rule 701. Defendant's challenges to two other rulings by the district court made during trial did not merit extensive discussion and were rejected. The court further concluded that defendant's sentence was reasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendant's conviction and sentence.

Defendant entered a conditional plea of guilty to one count of knowingly possessing three firearms following a misdemeanor conviction for domestic violence, in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9), pursuant to a plea agreement that reserved his right to appeal the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss. At issue was whether defendant's conviction under section 922(g)(9) survived his as-applied constitutional challenge under the Second Amendment. The court held that the government had carried its burden of establishing a reasonable fit between the substantial government objective of reducing domestic gun violence and keeping firearms out of the hands of persons who have been convicted of a domestic violence crime and persons who have threatened the use of a deadly weapon. Accordingly, the court held that, on defendant's as-applied challenge under the Second Amendment, section 922(g)(9) satisfied the intermediate scrutiny standard and the judgment of the district court was affirmed.