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

Plaintiff filed a personal injury suit against East West after he was nearly killed in a bulldozer accident. Plaintiff's direct employer is Ashland and Ashland hired East West as a subcontractor. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) where plaintiff's action is barred by the Virginia Workers' Compensation Act (VWCA), Va. Code Ann. 65.2-307, because plaintiff's injury occurred in Virginia and East West is a statutory co-employee under Virginia law. View "Demetres v. East West Construction, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against his former employer (ExxonMobil) and employees, alleging claims of fraud, intentional infliction of emotional distress, personal injury, and wrongful discharge. Plaintiff claimed that he was fired in retaliation for reporting illegal pharmacy practices, which caused him to suffer a heart attack and emotional stress. The court affirmed the district court's denial of plaintiff's motion to remand the case to state court and the dismissal of all but one of plaintiff's tort claims. The court concluded that plaintiff sufficiently stated a wrongful discharge claim under Virginia's public policy exception to its at-will employment doctrine. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Weidman v. Exxon Mobil Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against her former employer, alleging claims of a sexually hostile work environment and retaliation. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment to the employer. The court concluded that the totality of the record creates too close a question as to whether her coworkers' behavior created an objectively hostile or abusive work environment to be decided on summary judgment. Therefore, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment on this claim. The court concluded, however, that plaintiff failed to produce evidence creating a triable issue as to whether the employer's proffered explanation for terminating plaintiff was pretext for retaliation and, therefore, affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on this claim. View "Walker v. Mod-U-Kraf Homes, LLC" 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

Plaintiff, a registered nurse formerly employed by a state-operated hospital, filed suit under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201-219, against two supervisors, alleging that they improperly refused to authorize overtime pay for the hours she worked in excess of 40 hours. The court concluded that the Commonwealth of Virginia is the real party in interest in this action because the actions of defendants were inextricably tied to their official duties. The court reversed and remanded where the Eleventh Amendment has withdrawn jurisdiction over suits of this nature against the States, effectively giving the Commonwealth immunity. View "Martin v. Wood" on Justia Law

Norfolk Southern appealed the district court's order remanding to state court a claim brought against it under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), 45 U.S.C. 51-60. Norfolk also petitioned for a writ of mandamus vacating the district court's order and either dismissing the case, or alternatively, remanding to the district court to address the merits of its federal defense to the FELA claim. The court concluded that 28 U.S.C. 1447(d) barred review of the district court's order by appeal or via mandamus; Norfolk Southern has not established entitlement to mandamus relief because it has not shown a clear and indisputable right to such relief; and, accordingly, the court dismissed Norfolk Southern's appeal and deny its mandamus petition.View "In re: Norfolk Southern Railway Co." on Justia Law

GEICO appealed the district court's order granting partial summary judgment against them on the issue of liability in an action asserting denial of overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq. Plaintiffs cross-appealed an order granting partial summary judgment against them on several issues relating to the remedy to be awarded. With no final decision to review, the court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the appeals before it. Accordingly, the court dismissed the appeals.View "Calderon v. GEICO General Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an assistant district attorney (ADA) for the county, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, against defendant, the elected district attorney (DA) during plaintiff's tenure, alleging that he was fired for exercising his free-speech rights in violation of the United States and North Carolina Constitutions. The district court granted summary judgment against defendants. The court reversed, concluding that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to defendant on the First Amendment claim on the basis of qualified immunity. A reasonable DA in defendant's position would have known that he could not fire an ADA running for public office for speaking publicly in his capacity as a candidate on matters of public concern when the speech was critical of a program that substantially reduced the DA's office's caseload but there was no reason to believe the speech would negatively impact the DA's office's efficiency. The court reversed the summary judgment on the state-law claims as well. View "Smith v. Gilchrist, III" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against her former employer for racial discrimination and retaliation in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 42 U.S.C. 1981. Plaintiff's claims were based on two conversations she had with a coworker where the coworker made racially derogatory and highly offensive comments. The court concluded that the district court did not err in excluding plaintiff's answers to interrogatories from consideration as part of the summary judgment record. The court also concluded that, while in the abstract, continued repetition of racial comments of the kind plaintiff's coworker made might have led to a hostile work environment, no allegation in the record suggested that a plan was in motion to create such an environment, let alone that such an environment was even likely to occur. Plaintiff had not presented evidence such that a reasonable juror could find that her workplace was permeated with discriminatory intimidation, ridicule, and insult that was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of her employment and create an abusive working environment. The statements at issue were singular and isolated. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of defendants' motion for summary judgmentView "Boyer-Liberto v. Fontainebleau Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit alleging that he was unlawfully fired in retaliation for engaging in activities protected under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX), 18 U.S.C. 1514A. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants. The court affirmed, concluding that plaintiff had not successfully established the contributing factor element of his prima facie case. In this instance, the standard would be toothless if the court held that a preponderance of the evidence showed that the long-past activities at issue affected plaintiff's termination given the lengthy history of antagonism and the intervening events which caused the Outside Directors to view plaintiff as an insubordinate. View "Feldman v. Law Enforcement Assoc. Corp." on Justia Law