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

This appeal arose from the United States' effort to forfeit the assets of C.L.P., a cigarette manufacturer, following its guilty plea to several tobacco-related charges. The United States obtained a preliminary order of forfeiture allowing it to seize funds that C.L.P. had deposited into an escrow account, which held 35 sub-accounts for the benefit of each state in which C.L.P. sold its products. Two of those states, Oregon and Wisconsin, sought to amend the forfeiture order to exclude their respective sub-accounts from the forfeiture. Because the court concluded that the states have not proven by a preponderance of the evidence that they have a legal interest that entitled them to amendment of the forfeiture order, the court vacated the forfeiture order and remanded. View "United States v. State of Oregon, et al." on Justia Law

BP appealed a district court order granting summary judgment in favor of Charles V. Stanley, Jr., and his business (defendants), in BP's action seeking to enforce a restrictive covenant in a deed. BP also appealed the district court's award of attorneys' fees and costs. The court held that the district court erred in finding the Petroleum Restriction (PR), in the Special Warranty Deed that was attached to the Purchase and Sale Agreement (PSA) at issue, was overbroad and unenforceable where the PR did not prohibit Stanley from operating a non-BP-branded vehicle repair business on his property so long as the business did not also sell non-BP-branded gasoline. The court also concluded that the PR's prohibition of the sale of certain enumerated items was too inconsequential to invalidate the entire PR. Therefore, the PR on the whole "afford[s] a fair protection" to BP's interest without being "so large as to interfere with the interests of the public." Therefore, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants, vacated the fee and cost award, remanding for further proceedings. View "BP Products North America, Inc. v. Stanley, Jr." on Justia Law

In this bankruptcy case, SunTrust filed a proof of claim for repayment of a loan that it claimed was secured by a deed of trust on two contiguous parcels of debtor's real property in Orange County, North Carolina (Tract I and Tract II). The Trustee commenced this action under 11 U.S.C. 544(a)(3) to avoid the lien on Tract I because the deed of trust, while recorded on the official recordation index of Orange County as to Tract II, was not so recorded as to Tract I. SunTrust contended that even though the recordation was deficient, the Trustee was imputed with constructive knowledge of the lien on Tract I. The bankruptcy court rejected SunTrust's arguments and ordered its lien on Tract I avoided under section 544(a)(3), and the district court affirmed. Because the Trustee's status vis-a-vis the title of Tract I was, under section 544(a)(3), that of a bona fide purchaser under North Carolina law, the Trustee was only imputed with the notice that would be imputed to a bona fide purchaser of Tract I under North Carolina law. And North Carolina law allowed a purchaser to rely exclusively on the official recordation index of the county to discover liens, regardless of what other independent knowledge that purchaser might have. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment. View "McCormick v. Northen" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued his employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq., asserting that his inability to work more than eight hours per day and rotate day/night shifts as a result of physical impairments rendered him disabled under the ADA. The district court granted summary judgment to the employer and plaintiff subsequently appealed. The court held that an inability to work overtime did not constitute a "substantial" limitation on a major life activity under the ADA and the record contained no evidence indicating that plaintiff's inability to work overtime "significantly restricted" his ability to perform a class of jobs or a broad range of jobs in various classes. Therefore, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Boitnott v. Corning Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed a district court order dismissing several of their claims in a suit regarding conduct that occurred during bankruptcy proceedings. Plaintiffs were former officers of EBW Laser, a company that entered bankruptcy in 2005. After the case was converted to Chapter 7, the court appointed attorney Charles Ivey as trustee and Ivey subsequently retained his firm (IMGT) to serve as his counsel and to prosecute an adversary proceeding he had filed against plaintiffs. On appeal, plaintiffs argued that the district court erred in dismissing their claims against the IMGT defendants under the Barton doctrine. The Supreme Court established in Barton that before another court could obtain subject-matter jurisdiction over a suit filed against a receiver for acts committed in his official capacity, plaintiff must obtain leave of the court that appointed the receiver. The court held that the district court properly dismissed plaintiffs' claims and properly applied the Barton doctrine. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's order. View "McDaniel, Jr. v. Blust" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his convictions for willfully and knowingly making a false statement on a passport application after he prepared, signed, and submitted passport applications for his three stepsons and listed himself as the children's father. The court held that the district court did not err in concluding that the Bronston literal truth defense did not entitle defendant to judgment as a matter of law; in the context of an application for a United States passport, the word "father" was not fundamentally ambiguous; the evidence was sufficient to find that defendant understood the inquiry made by the passport application as the Government itself did and answered the question posed falsely; and the district court did not err in refusing to give defendant's proposed instruction regarding the lack of statutory definition of the word "father." Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Sarwari" on Justia Law

The State sought reversal of the district court's judgment granting a writ of habeas corpus to petitioner. In granting the writ, the district court vacated the sentence of death imposed after petitioner's conviction of first degree murder. The district court concluded, inter alia, that the state courts of North Carolina unreasonably applied Strickland v. Washington, in rejecting petitioner's claim that his attorney on direct appeal failed to provide effective assistance of counsel. The court held that the district court's decision granting petitioner's petition ran contrary to the deference that federal courts were required to afford state court decisions adjudicating the merits of habeas corpus claims. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's judgment granting the petition on the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel. The court affirmed the remainder of the district court's judgment, rejecting petitioner's Brady v. Maryland and Atkins v. Virginia claims. View "Richardson v. Branker" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted and sentenced on two counts of possessing a firearm or ammunition while subject to a domestic violence protective order in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8). Defendant appealed the district court's determination that his convictions under section 922(g)(8) did not violate the Second Amendment. The court affirmed the judgment of the district court. But because it was plain error to convict and sentence defendant on two separate counts for the simultaneous possession of a firearm and ammunition under section 922(g)(8), the court reversed defendant's conviction as to count two of the indictment, vacated his sentence, and remanded for resentencing. View "United States v. Mahin" on Justia Law

In this case, an insurer sought a declaratory judgment that it was required to indemnify its insured for no more than 40% of a state court judgment because it had covered its insured for no more than 40% of the time in which the state court plaintiff was exposed to lead poisoning. The district court agreed that the insurer was responsible for only a portion of the judgment, notwithstanding the fact that its insured was held jointly and severally liable for the entire judgment in the underlying state proceeding. Plaintiff challenged the district court's decision to allocate the insurer's liability on a pro rata basis. Plaintiff next argued that even if pro rata allocation was appropriate, the district court should have used the date of her first elevated blood lead level rather than her date of birth to calculate her period of exposure. The insurer challenged the district court's refusal to reduce its period of coverage to 22 months. Applying Maryland law, the court affirmed the district court's judgment with respect to plaintiff's arguments. With respect to the matter raised by the cross-appeal, the court reversed. The principle underlying the court's decision was that an insurance company could not be held liable for periods of risk it never contracted to cover. Accordingly, the court reversed in part and affirmed in part. View "Pennsylvania Nat'l Mutual v. Roberts" on Justia Law

Defendant sought relief from a sentence of 240 months in prison, imposed as a result of his illegal reentry into the United States after being removed for a conviction of an aggravated felony. On appeal, defendant raised several procedural challenges to the sentence. The court held that the sentencing court committed no procedural error because the Guidelines did not expressly prohibit the triple counting of defendant's prior record; the court did not impermissibly count defendant's extensive criminal record when it imposed the upward variance justified under the 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) sentencing factors; the district court's upward departures were not procedurally defective; and the 240 month sentence was substantively reasonable. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed. View "United States v. Rivera-Santana" on Justia Law