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

Plaintiffs in this class action are a class of all West Virginia citizens who refinanced a total of 2,769 mortgages with Defendant Quicken Loans Inc. (now Rocket Mortgage, LLC) from 2004 to 2009, for whom Quicken Loans obtained appraisals from Defendant appraisal management company Title Source, Inc. (now Amrock Inc.) using a request form that included an estimate of value of the subject property. The district court certified the proposed class and granted summary judgment to Plaintiffs on three claims: unconscionable inducement under West Virginia Code Section 46A-2-121(a)(1); breach of contract; and conspiracy.   Previously the Fourth Circuit concluded that Plaintiffs had standing because all of the class members had paid “for independent appraisals that . . . they never received”. Three months later, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, which addressed Article III standing in the context of a class-action case. Having considered the parties' submissions, the Fourth Circuit concluded that the district court should apply TransUnion to the facts of this case in the first instance. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "Phillip Alig v. Rocket Mortgage, LLC" on Justia Law

Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company (“Farm Bureau”) issued a term life insurance policy to S.M. S.M.’s husband, Plaintiff, who was the policy’s primary beneficiary. Farm Bureau received a notification from the Post Office indicating that S.M.’s address had changed. Farm Bureau sent its semiannual bill to S.M. at her South Carolina address, informing her that her payment was due on November 23, 2016. S.M. did not pay the bill. Plaintiff sued Farm Bureau in federal district court, seeking the policy’s coverage amount as well as excess damages for alleged unfair and deceptive trade practices on the part of Farm Bureau. He argued that Farm Bureau had not complied with a statutory notice requirement prior to canceling the insurance policy for nonpayment and he was therefore entitled to the policy’s benefits. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, and the district court granted summary judgment to Farm Bureau.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed finding that Farm Bureau complied with the statute’s notice requirement. The court wrote that a literal interpretation of the statute’s language—referring to a notice being sent to the “last known post-office address in this State”—would not put S.M. on notice at all. Rather it would have Farm Bureau send “notice” to an address where it knows she no longer resides. Additionally, there is substance in Farm Bureau’s argument that a rigidly literal reading of the words “in this State” would require insurers to implement burdensome and nonsensical notice policies. View "Robert Whitmire v. Southern Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company" on Justia Law

The Tennessee Valley Authority sells its power to the BVU Authority in Virginia, one of its many customers. The BVU Authority in turn sells its power to local consumers who need electricity. Among those local consumers is Plaintiff, who believes that the TVA has a statutory duty to use the fruits of its sales to large industrial buyers to subsidize consumers’ electricity consumption. Plaintiff believes that a string of TVA rate changes, shifting costs from industry to consumers, were illegal. So he sued BVU Authority and TVA under three theories, which all more or less amount to claims that the TVA failed to live up to its statutory duties under Section 11. The district court dismissed all three claims because TVA’s rate-making authority is committed to agency discretion and thus unreviewable.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of all three of Plaintiff’s claims. The court explained that Section 11 of the TVA Act lays out broad policies and goals that operate more like aspirations than commands. It does not support any of the claims that Plaintiff offers against TVA or BVU Authority. TVA rate-making is a presumptively unreviewable category of agency action under 701(a)(2), and the policy-laden language of Section 11 does not provide any guidelines or limits to overcome that presumption. Because the TVA-BVU contract simply repeats the vague statutory language, Plaintiff’s contract claim is really a statutory claim in disguise, and Section 11 of the TVA Act does not provide a private cause of action. View "David Holbrook v. Tennessee Valley Authority" on Justia Law

The Board of Trustees of the Sheet Metal Workers’ National Pension Fund (“the Fund”) sought to recover a delinquent exit contribution from Four-C-Aire, Inc., a former participating employer, under Section 515 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”). 29 U.S.C. Section 1145. The Fund claims Four-C-Aire’s obligation arose under a collective-bargaining agreement (“the CBA”) between the Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association Local Union No. 58 and the Central New York Sheet Metal Contractors Association, a multiemployer bargaining unit. According to the Fund, Four C-Aire signed on to this preexisting agreement while it was a member of the Contractors Association.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed, finding that Four-C-Aire adopted the agreement by its conduct. The court held that even if Four-C-Aire had preserved the issue, it’s meritless. The record contains several iterations of the written trust documents, including those imposing the exit-contribution requirement. And the Fund’s Director of Operations verified each version of the document in a declaration to the district court. Further, the court wrote there is no evidence the trust documents are invalid. In sum, Four-C-Aire offers no reason why the court shouldn’t enforce the plain terms of the agreement and trust documents, as ERISA requires. View "Board of Trustees v. Four-C-Aire, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff entered into a share purchase agreement with Defendants for the sale of her business, which agreement the parties later amended (the contract, or the amended agreement). Plaintiff filed suit in December 2019 in North Carolina state court, alleging that Defendants had not made interest and earnout payments as required under the amended agreement. Defendants removed the case to federal district court in the Middle District of North Carolina, where they argued that the state or federal courts in New York were the exclusive forums for Plaintiff’s complaint under the contract’s forum selection clause. Defendants also argued that Plaintiff’s claims were not yet ripe because, at the time the complaint was filed, all payments that were due under the contract had been made. The district court remanded the case to the North Carolina state court, and Defendants appealed.   The Fourth Circuit initially concluded that Plaintiff’s claims are ripe, both as originally pleaded and under the facts developed prior to the district court’s judgment. The court also agreed with the magistrate judge that Plaintiff’s claims do not relate to a setoff and that under the contract’s forum selection clause, the state or federal courts in New York are the exclusive forums for Plaintiff’s  claims. The court therefore vacated and remanded with instructions that the district court transfer this case to the Southern District of New York. View "Pamela Whitaker v. Monroe Staffing Services, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff entered into a reverse mortgage agreement with Reverse Mortgage Solutions, Inc. (“RMS”). In violation of the Truth in Lending Act (“TILA”), RMS failed to disclose certain information at closing. Section 1635(b) of TILA imposes certain obligations on a creditor, like RMS, after it receives a notice of rescission, but RMS did not comply with those obligations either. Plaintiff sued RMS for, among other things, rescission and failing to honor her rescission rights under TILA.   A jury returned a verdict for RMS, finding that RMS did not fail to honor Plaintiff’s attempt to rescind the loan. However, the district court issued judgment as a matter of law for Plaintiff holding that RMS violated Section 1635(b)’s requirements. It also held that Plaintiff was not required to tender or return, the loan proceeds to RMS.   The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment as a matter of law and remanded. The court explained that the district court erred in granting judgment as a matter of law to Plaintiff on the Rescission Count. In response to RMS’s failure to voluntarily unwind the loan or otherwise respond to that notice as required by Section 1635(b), Plaintiff had a right to sue RMS to obtain rescission relief under TILA. But neither Section 1635(b) nor any other provision of TILA provides that the failure of a lender to voluntarily unwind a loan or respond to a notice of intent to rescind allows a borrower to avoid tendering the loan proceeds as part of rescission. View "Teresa Lavis v. Reverse Mortgage Solutions Inc" on Justia Law

This dispute concerned whether an international trader of bunker fuel was entitled to a maritime lien on a vessel under the Commercial Instrument and Maritime Lien Act (CIMLA). The M/V LILA SHANGHAI (the Vessel) was a gross tonnage bulk carrier owned by Autumn Harvest Maritime Co. Autumn Harvest time-chartered the Vessel to Bostomar Bulk Shipping Pte Ltd. (Bostomar). The contract foreclosed charterers from unilaterally placing liens on the Vessel; in the event of "any dispute" between Autumn Harvest and Bostomar about the Vessel and their respective obligations, the parties would refer the matter to arbitration. Bostomar sub-chartered the Vessel to Medmar Inc. (Medmar). While sailing to India, the Vessel needed bunkers to complete its journey. Costas Mylonakis, an employee of Windrose Marine, contacted Appellant Sing Fuels Pte. Ltd. (Sing Fuels) to order the Vessel’s bunkers. Sing Fuels transmitted its bunker contract only to Mylonakis’s e-mail address affiliated with Windrose Marine. Mylonakis never returned any memorialized document from Medmar. Sing Fuels exclusively communicated with Mylonakis for this transaction, considered Mylonakis to be Medmar’s fuel broker, and never spoke directly with Medmar. Mylonakis also never communicated with Medmar, he conferred instead with a mysterious entity called M.A.C. Shipping. Medmar returned the Vessel to Bostomar in August 2019, with Sing Fuels still awaiting payment for July bunkers. By October 2019, payment for the July bunkers was still outstanding, so Sing Fuels sent Autumn Harvest a notice of nonpayment; Autumn Harvest refused to pay. In the wake of collapsed negotiations, Sing Fuels paid the physical supplier of the July bunkers. Without knowing where to turn after Medmar’s payment default on the bunkers, and its discussions with Autumn Harvest exhausted, Sing Fuels waited until the Vessel docked in the United States and then availed itself of US courts to recoup payment. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals determined the bunker trader failed to show that it procured the vessel’s fuel “on the order of the owner or a person authorized by the owner,” under CIMLA, therefore, it affirmed the district court’s judgment denying the maritime lien. View "Sing Fuels Pte Ltd. v. M/V LILA SHANGHAI" on Justia Law

Defendant, owner and developer of two undeveloped parcels of land, entered into a consulting services agreement with Plaintiff for each parcel. After Plaintiff obtained the necessary approvals from the City of Frederick and otherwise performed the services he was hired to do, Defendant refused payment because it had neither sold the parcels nor elected to build on them, which, it claimed, were conditions precedent to payment. The district court rejected Defendant’s argument and others similar to it and found that it had breached the agreements in refusing payment.   On appeal, Defendant argued that he district court erred (1) in finding that the developer breached the consulting agreements when conditions precedent to compensation were not satisfied; (2) in rejecting its impossibility of performance defense; (3) in applying principles of unjust enrichment in connection with a claim based on a contract; and (4) in calculating unjust enrichment damages.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling and rejected each of Defendant’s challenges. The court concluded that a reasonably prudent person would read the relevant provisions to give them one meaning as relevant to the issues here — that Plaintiff was to be compensated for his “obtaining the Approvals for the Proposed Use,” and that there was no other conditions precedent for earning compensation. Further, the impossibility doctrine is irrelevant to Defendant’s obligation to compensate Plaintiff. Further, Maryland courts provide several exceptions to the unjust enrichment bar, one of which addresses the circumstances here “when the express contract does not fully address a subject matter.” View "Byron Martz v. Day Development Company, L.C." on Justia Law

In 2012, the Moores sued, claiming that Equitrans breached the parties’ right-of-way agreement and trespassed on the Moores’ land by laying two pipeline segments outside of the area specified in their agreement. A jury found that Equitrans either trespassed on the Moores’ West Virginia property or violated the right-of-way agreement but made no findings as to the proper remedy. While the Moores initially sought equitable relief (ejectment), a subsequent condemnation judgment in favor of Equitrans ultimately precluded such relief. Following several appeals, the district court allowed the Moores to pursue damages for breach-of-contract and trespass but denied leave to add a claim for intentional trespass. Later, the district court barred any claim for breach-of-contract damages. After excluding much of the Moores’ evidence of trespass damages, the court sua sponte entered judgment in favor of Equitrans.The Fourth Circuit vacated in part. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying leave to amend, in making its motion in limine rulings, or in entering judgment in favor of Equitrans on contract damages. The court rejected a contention that the proper measure of trespass damages includes a portion of Equitrans’s profits. Because the Moores lacked sufficient notice that they needed to come forward with all evidence of trespass damages, the court vacated the portion of the judgment concerning trespass damages for procedural error and remanded. View "Moore v. Equitrans, L.P." on Justia Law

Labor unions and the West Virginia Pipe Trades Health and Welfare Fund, sued Nitro Construction under the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. 185, after Nitro made several tardy payments to the Fund. Nitro had paid its required contribution before the suit was filed; the suit sought $77,373.95 in liquidated damages, plus interest and attorneys’ fees, as provided for by the collection procedures.The district court granted Nitro summary judgment, holding that the liquidated damages constituted penalties and were therefore unrecoverable. The Fourth Circuit affirmed. Although ERISA allows punitive liquidated damages, federal common law prohibits punitive damages for breach of contract. The federal common law to be applied in LMRA Section 301 cases is ordinarily the general law of contracts. The court noted that the Fund sought almost $80,000 in liquidated damages, even though its actual damages (lost interest) are readily ascertainable and were only $3,952. Nitro’s late payments did not result in any claim being denied. Nitro never agreed to the liquidated damages provisions; the Fund unilaterally created its delinquent employer procedures under its governing document. The district court did not err by finding these liquidated damages provisions to be punitive and declining to enforce them. View "Plumbers & Pipefitters Local 625 v. Nitro Construction Services, Inc." on Justia Law