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

Appellant challenged the grant of summary judgment for her employer when her boss forcibly kissed her, fondled her leg, propositioned her, asked sexually explicit questions, described sexual activities he wished to perform, and then, after she spurned the advances and filed a harassment complaint, fired her. The court held that because those allegations were sufficient to make out claims of hostile work environment, quid pro quo harassment, and retaliation, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiffs filed suit against the county, alleging that the December 17 prayer at the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners (Board) meeting represented one instance of the Board's broader practice of sponsoring sectarian opening prayers at its meetings. After conducting a thorough review of the factual record, the district court concluded that the Board's legislative prayer policy violated the Establishment Clause by advancing and endorsing Christianity to the exclusion of other faiths. The court held that the district court's ruling accorded with both Supreme Court precedent and the court's own precedent where those cases established that in order to survive constitutional scrutiny, an invocation must consist of the type of nonsectarian prayers that solemnize the legislative task and seek to unit rather than divide. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Plaintiff sued defendants under 42 U.S.C. 1983, contending that in disciplining her for a MySpace.com webpage, which was largely dedicated to ridiculing a fellow student, defendants violated her free speech and due process rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Plaintiff alleged, among other things, that defendants were not justified in regulating her speech because it did not occur during a "school-related activity," but rather was "private out-of-school speech." The court held that defendants' imposition of sanctions was permissible where plaintiff used the Internet to orchestrate a targeted attack on a classmate and did so in a manner that was sufficiently connected to the school environment as to implicate defendants' recognized authority to discipline speech which "materially and substantially interfere[d] with the requirements of appropriate discipline in the operation of the school and collid[ed] with the rights of others." Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants.

An officer shot an unarmed man wanted for failure to pay child support, when he started running away. In an action under 42 U.S.C. 1983, the parties stipulated that the officer intended to use his Taser rather than his gun. The district court granted him summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The Fourth Circuit reversed, analyzing the shooting as a "seizure" under the Fourth Amendment and applying an objective standard of reasonableness. The use of force could be viewed by a jury as objectively unreasonable. The officer knew he carried his Taser in the holster on his thigh, about a foot lower than the holster on his hip; he knew that the gun weighed twice what the Taser weighed; and he knew that the Taser had a thumb safety that the gun did not have. The shooting was not a split-second decision; well-established precedent prohibits shooting suspects who pose no significant threat of death or serious physical threat. A reasonable jury could also find that the officer was grossly negligent and not protected by the Maryland Tort Claims Act, Md. Code State Govt, 12-101.

Appellees, the parents of a child with moderate-to-severe autism, filed due process proceedings against the Sumter County School District #17 ("District") seeking a determination that the District did not provide a free and appropriate public education ("FAPE") to the child as required by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA"), 20 U.S.C. 1412(a)(1)(A). At issue was whether the district court erred by concluding that the District failed to provide the child with a FAPE and that the program established by the child's parents to educate him at home was appropriate. The court held that that the district court did not err in concluding that the District failed to provide the child with FAPE for the 2005-2006 school year where the district court considered the evidence of the child's small improvements in a few tested areas against the District's conceded failure to provide the hours of therapy required for the child, the evidence that the lead teacher and aides did not understand or use proper techniques, and the evidence that it took one teacher months of working with the child to correct the problems caused by the improper techniques. The court also held that the district court did not err by finding that the District was not capable of providing FAPE to the child where the District's evidence was not compelling enough to establish it's improved capabilities at the time of the due process hearing. The court also held that the evidence was sufficient to support the district court's findings that the home placement was reasonably calculated to enable the child to receive educational benefits.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), on behalf of three individuals and present or former African American employees of Xerxes Corporation ("Xerxes"), alleged that Xerxes had a hostile work environment on the basis of race in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2. At issue was whether the district court properly granted summary judgment in favor of Xerxes based on its opinion that Xerxes' responses to the reports of harassment at issue were reasonable as a matter of law. The court partially vacated the summary judgment order and held that there was a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Xerxes was on notice of racial harassment of two of the individuals prior to February 2006 and took no action reasonably calculated to end the harassment.

Plaintiff sued defendants when defendants stopped reviewing the additional signatures that had been submitted for a referendum due to a pending legal challenge filed by a third party which was unrelated to defendants' signature validating methods. At issue was whether defendants denied plaintiff's rights to freely associate, petition the government, and vote; whether defendants had denied plaintiff due process and equal protection; and whether defendants had violated plaintiff's constitutional rights under 42 U.S.C.§ 1983. The court held that plaintiff's right to freely associate, petition the government, and vote were not violated where there was no fundamental right to initiate legislation by means of a referendum as there is a fundamental right to vote. The court also held that plaintiff was not denied due process or equal protection where the district court correctly concluded that plaintiff's right to equal protection had not been denied upon a rational basis review and where defendants provided adequate notice to invalidate petitioner signatures and adequate opportunities for review of the invalidation of plaintiff's petition signature. The court also held that the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs amended complaint for failure to state a claim for denial of any of plaintiff's constitutional rights was proper and therefore dismissal of his § 1983 was also proper.

Plaintiff sued defendant, Freightliner, LLC ("Freightliner"), alleging violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act ("Title VII") and North Carolina law after Freightliner terminated plaintiff. At issue was whether summary judgment was proper where Freightliner's motion to strike the declaration of a belatedly-disclosed witness was granted. Also at issue was whether summary judgment was properly granted in favor of Freightliner on plaintiff's claims of hostile work environment sex discrimination, disparate treatment sex discrimination, and retaliation under Title VII. The court held that there was no abuse of discretion in striking from the summary judgment record the belatedly-disclosed declaration. The court also held that the district court erred only on its disposition of the hostile work environment claim as a matter of law and therefore, vacated the judgment and remanded the case as to the hostile work environment claim.