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

Appellants challenged the district court's award of attorney's fees and costs under 42 U.S.C. 1988 to appellee where appellants served an offer of judgment pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 68(a) on appellee, which she timely accepted. At issue was whether the district court erred in holding that the amount appellants offered to settle the dispute did not include her attorney's fees and costs. The court affirmed and held that the district court properly enforced the offer of judgment as drafted and served by appellants because the offer contained no language limiting appellant's liability for appellee's recoverable pre-offer costs, including attorney's fees.

Appellee, as personal representative for her son's estate, brought a wrongful death suit against a tugboat owner, appellant, and sought contribution from the United States as co-tortfeasor, when her son was killed during a Navy training exercise where his rigid-hull inflatable boat collided with the tug boat when it was pushing an eight-barge flotilla up the James River. At issue was whether the district court properly determined that appellant was negligent for failing to post a proper lookout on the night of the accident and whether the district court properly dismissed appellant's third-party claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court declined to disturb the district court's findings as to liability for the collision and apportionment of fault where the district court understood and properly applied the appropriate legal standard pursuant to Inland Navigation Rule 5 and where appellant's additional arguments were unavailing. The court affirmed the district court's order granting the government's motion to dismiss appellant's third-party claim where the district court found that the Feres-Stencel Aero doctrine applied to appellant's action and barred its attempt to obtain contribution from the United States for damages when the government had not waived its sovereign immunity.

Plaintiffs filed a complaint against defendant asserting six common law claims, individually and on behalf of a class of customers of the Parkersburg City Water Department, related to the contamination of their municipal water supply and the resulting presence of perflurooctanoic acid in their blood. At issue was whether plaintiffs demonstrated an injury sufficient to survive summary judgment on certain West Virgina common law tort claims. Also at issue was whether the district court erred in denying class certification. Further at issue was whether plaintiffs, who obtained voluntary dismissals in the district court of their individual claims for medical monitoring, have standing to pursue an appeal of the district court's denial of class certification of those claims. The court held that summary judgment was proper on all plaintiffs' traditional common law tort claims, namely, the claims of negligence, gross negligence, battery, trespass, private nuisance, and public nuisance. The court also held that it did not need to address the separate matter of the district court's denial of class certification as these issues were now moot. The court further held that it lacked jurisdiction to decide the district court's denial of plaintiffs' class certification regarding their medical monitoring claims.