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

The trustee of Firstpay's bankruptcy estate sought a judgment against the United States for an amount of payroll tax payments the firm made on behalf of its employer-clients to the IRS. At issue on appeal was whether the trustee may reclaim as property of Firstpay the approximately $28 million transferred by the firm to the IRS during the 90 days preceding the filing of the bankruptcy petition. The court agreed with the bankruptcy court and the district court that, as a matter of law, Firstpay lacked an equitable interest in the funds paid over to the IRS. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Wolff v. United States" on Justia Law

AGI filed suit against the City, raising claims arising out of an agreement between the City and Profile Aviation. The district court denied the City's motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction, holding that, under North Carolina law, governmental immunity from equitable claims is waived when a county or municipality acts in a proprietary, rather than governmental, capacity. Because (1) North Carolina precedent suggests that the Supreme Court of North Carolina would rule that immunity from equitable claims may be waived pursuant to the proprietary function theory and (2) the rationale behind the theory, as articulated by both the United States Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of North Carolina, is consistent with the waiver of immunity for equitable claims, the court held that the district court did not err in its application of North Carolina state law. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "AGI Assoc. v. City of Hickory, NC" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction of knowingly failing to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 42 U.S.C. 16913(a). Defendant argued that the government failed to prove an essential element of a SORNA violation - that he knew he had an obligation to register - based on comments made by a state court judge in a separate proceeding, which defendant argued suggested that his obligation to register had expired. The court agreed with the district court's determination that the state judge appeared to be giving advice rather than a binding legal opinion, and there is substantial evidence in the record to support the district court's conclusion that defendant knowingly avoided an obligation to register. Further, the court concluded that defendant's 30-month sentence was reasonable. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction and sentence. The court vacated the supervised release portion of the sentence, however, because the U.S. Sentencing Commission recently issued a clarifying amendment that a failure to register under SORNA is not a sex offense for the purposes of the Guidelines. The court vacated the supervised release portion of defendant's sentence, remanding for further proceedings. View "United States v. Collins" on Justia Law

After his felon-in-possession conviction was vacated, petitioner sought a certificate of actual innocence under 28 U.S.C. 2513. The court concluded that petitioner did not satisfy the second section 2513 predicate where petitioner cannot prove that he "did not commit any of the acts charged" and so cannot satisfy the first part of the second predicate. Because petitioner concedes that he also did not prove the alternative second part of that predicate, he is not entitled to a certificate of innocence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's denial of the petition. View "United States v. Mills, Sr." on Justia Law

Universal, a leather wholesaler located in North Carolina, filed suit against Koro, a leather company in Argentina, in North Carolina state court, alleging breach of contract. Koro removed to federal court and the district court granted its motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction. The court concluded that Universal met its initial burden of demonstrating that Koro purposefully availed itself of the privilege of conducting business in the forum state by submitting affidavits stating that Koro contacted Universal in the forum state, conducted repeated in-person solicitations and meetings concerning the parties' business relationship there, and engaged in numerous business transactions over a two-year period. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded. View "Universal Leather v. KORO AR" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against Wells Fargo under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1132, alleging that the company improperly terminated her short-term disability benefits while she was undergoing a series of treatments for thyroid disease. The district court found insufficient evidence of disability under the Plan to conclude that Wells Fargo abused its discretion in denying plaintiff's claim. The court held that Wells Fargo failed to meet its statutory and Plan obligations to plaintiff as a beneficiary. By failing to contact plaintiff's psychologist when it was on notice that plaintiff was seeking treatment for mental health conditions and when it had his contact information, as well as properly signed release forms from plaintiff, the plan administrator chose to remain willfully blind to readily available information that may well have confirmed plaintiff's theory of disability. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with directions to return the case to Wells Fargo for a full and fair review of plaintiff's claims. View "Harrison v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, South Carolina public employees, filed suit challenging the constitutionality of the South Carolina State Retirement System Preservation and Investment Reform Act, 2005 S.C. Acts 1697. The Act amended South Carolina's retirement laws by requiring public employees who retire and then return to work to make, beginning on July 1, 2005, the same contributions to state-created pension plans as pre-retirement employees but without receiving further pension benefits. The court rejected plaintiffs' argument that their claims under the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment are exempt from the protection of the Eleventh Amendment. The court agreed with the district court that the pension plans and the Trust are arms of the State and have sovereign immunity; the state officials sued in their official capacities for repayment of pension-plan contributions have sovereign immunity; and the state officials sued in their official capacities for prospective injunctive relief have sovereign immunity because their duties bear no relation to the collection of the public employees' contributions to the pension plans, excluding application of Ex parte Young. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Hutto v. SC Retirement System" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance (PCP), nine counts of distribution of PCP, and one count of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking offense. (appeal No. 13-14296). In appeal No. 4299, the district court imposed a consecutive sentence of 60 months for violation of supervised release arising from the convictions in No. 13-4296. Defendant appealed from both judgments but abandoned his appeal of the revocation sentence in No. 13-14299. The court concluded that there was sufficient evidence to support each of defendant's convictions, but his sentence was substantively unreasonable where the court failed to see how the life-plus-60-months sentence reasonably reflects the seriousness of the offense or just punishment. Accordingly, the court affirmed the convictions and vacated the sentence, remanding for resentencing. View "United States v. Howard" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, parents of nine-year-old E.L., who has autism, initiated an administrative complaint against the school board under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. 1400 et seq. An ALJ determined that the school board violated the IDEA by failing to provide E.L. with required speech therapy but, in all other respects, she was provided an appropriate special education program. The school board appealed and the state review officer reversed the ALJ's conclusion regarding the speech therapy. Plaintiffs then filed a civil action seeking judicial review of the administrative proceedings. The court concluded that E.L. did not exhaust her administrative remedies and that the school board did not violate the IDEA where the review officer's conclusion that E.L. received the speech therapy mandated by her individualized education program is supported by the evidence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "E. L. v. Chapel Hill-Carrboro Board of Education" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendants, alleging claims pursuant to the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA), 18 U.S.C. 1589, 1590, 1595; the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 206, 216; and Virginia contract law. Plaintiff is a citizen of the Philippines and moved to the United States to work for defendants in order to provide for her young daughter and elderly parents, all of whom reside in the Philippines. Plaintiff's claims stemmed from her allegations that she was forced to work for defendants for wages well below the minimum from 2002 until her escape in 2008. The district court dismissed plaintiff's claims as time-barred. In 2008, Congress amended the TVPA to include a ten-year statute of limitations, William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008 (TVPRA), 18 U.S.C. 1595(c). The court held that applying the TVPRA's extended limitations period to claims that were unexpired at the time of its enactment does not give rise to an impermissible retroactive effect under Landgraf v. USI Film Products. In this case, plaintiff pled facts sufficient to support the conclusion that her claims were unexpired under the four-year limitations period when the 2008 TVPA went into effect. Therefore, the court concluded that, although plaintiff's state law claims are time-barred, her TVPA claims may be timely under the ten-year limitations period if they were tolled until within four years of the TVPRA's enactment, and her FLSA claim may be timely if she received actual notice of her rights within three years of filing this suit. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. View "Cruz v. Maypa" on Justia Law