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

Plaintiffs filed suit against the Sheriff of the City of Hampton, Virginia, in his individual capacity and in his official capacity, alleging that the Sheriff retaliated against plaintiffs in violation of their First Amendment rights by choosing not to reappoint them because of their support of his electoral opponent. The court concluded that, as to the claims of Plaintiffs Sandhofer, Woodward, and Bland, the district court properly analyzed the merits of the claims; as to the claims of Plaintiffs Carter, McCoy, and Dixon, the district court erred by concluding that plaintiffs failed to create a genuine dispute of material fact regarding whether the Sheriff violated their First Amendment rights; nevertheless, the district court properly ruled that the Sheriff was entitled to qualified immunity on Carter's McCoy's, and Dixon's claims seeking money damages against the Sheriff in his individual capacity, and that the Sheriff was entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity against those claims to the extent they sought monetary relief against him in his official capacity; and the Sheriff was not entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity on Carter's, McCoy's and Dixon's claims to the extent the remedy sought was reinstatement. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Bland v. Roberts" on Justia Law

Defendant, convicted of drug charges and a money laundering conspiracy, appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion. The court concluded that the district court did not err in limiting its review to the 16 claims in the amended petition that were supported by facts and argument, particularly where many of the claims in the amended section 2255 motion were also raised in the original filing and the rest consisted only of vague and conclusory allegations; because a cursory review of the record revealed that the conspiracy charged here indisputably involved quantities of cocaine and cocaine base far in excess of the minimum amounts necessary to sustain the sentences, any Apprendi error did not seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings so as to warrant notice; and defendant's remaining claims regarding ineffective assistance of counsel were without merit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Dyess" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Chesapeake seeking an injunction and damages based on claims arising from the drilling and operation by Chesapeake of three natural gas wells on surface property owned by plaintiffs. Chesapeake owns lease rights to minerals beneath plaintiffs' surface property and the property rights of both parties ultimately flowed from two severance deeds that originally split the surface and mineral estates of the 101 acres of land plaintiffs owned. The only issue on appeal was whether the district court erred when it granted summary judgment for Chesapeake on plaintiffs' claim for common law trespass. The court concluded that the district court was correct to hold that creating drill waste pits was reasonably necessary for recovery of natural gas and did not impose a substantial burden on plaintiffs' surface property, that creation of the pits was consistent with Chesapeake's rights under its lease, was a practice common to natural gas wells in West Virginia, and consistent with requirements of applicable rules and regulations for the protection of the environment. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Whiteman v. Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC" on Justia Law

This case concerned efforts by the Town of Nags Head, North Carolina, to declare beachfront properties that encroach onto "public trust lands" a nuisance, and regulate them accordingly. In the related appeal of Sansotta v. Town of Nags Head, the district court adjudicated the claims but concluded that it was inappropriate for a "federal court to intervene in such delicate state-law matters," and abstained from decision under Burford v. Sun Oil Co. The court reversed the district court's decision to abstain in this case where resolving the claims in this case was not sufficiently difficult or disruptive of that policy to free the district court from its "unflagging obligation to exercise its jurisdiction." Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Town of Nags Head v. Toloczko" on Justia Law

WCS filed suit against the Unions and the Fund under the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. 187, alleging that defendants orchestrated fourteen separate legal challenges against their commercial real estate project in order to force WCS to terminate their relationship with a non-unionized supermarket. WCS alleged that this was an illicit "secondary boycott" under 29 U.S.C. 158(b)(4)(ii)(B). The court affirmed the district court's decision to dismiss the complaint against the Fund because it was not a "labor organization" under the LMRA. The court concluded, however, that the district court erred in dismissing WCS's claims against the Unions where there remained a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the pattern of litigation alleged in WCS's complaint derived from "a policy of starting legal proceedings without regard to the merits and for the purpose of" waging a secondary boycott. Accordingly, the court vacated the dismissal of WCS's complaint as to the remaining union defendants and remanded for further proceedings. View "Waugh Chapel South, LLC v. United Food and Commercial Workers Union" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence stemming from his plea of guilty to unlawful re-entry of a removed alien after an aggravated felony conviction. Defendant challenged the district court's application of a 16-level sentencing enhancement based on the determination that his prior conviction under Maryland's child abuse statute was a "crime of violence" under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b)(1)(A)(ii). The court reversed and remanded for resentencing, concluding that, in light of its recent decision in United States v. Gomez and the Supreme Court's decision in Descamps v. United States, the modified categorical approach was inapplicable and that under the categorical approach, defendant's prior conviction was not a crime of violence. View "United States v. Cabrera-Umanzor" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for drug trafficking. Defendant argued that police officers violated his Fourth Amendment rights when they pulled two bags of trash from a trash can located behind his girlfriend's apartment where they found enough evidence to obtain a warrant to search the apartment. The court concluded that the district court did not err in finding as fact that at the time of the trash pull, the trash can was sitting on common property of the apartment complex, rather than next to the apartment's rear door; in this location, the trash can was situated and the trash pull was accomplished beyond the apartment's curtilage; in the circumstances of this case, defendant lacked a reasonable expectation of privacy in the trash can's contents. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's conclusion that the trash pull did not violate defendant's Fourth Amendment rights. View "United States v. Jackson" on Justia Law

Petitioner was convicted of a single count of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Petitioner filed a motion to vacate his conviction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 2255 four years later, in light of the court's decision in United States v. Simmons. In Simmons, the court held that a defendant's prior conviction for which he could not have received more than a year in prison under North Carolina's mandatory Structured Sentencing Act, N.C. Gen. Stat. 15A-1340.17, was not "punishable" by more than one year in prison and was not a felony offense for purposes of federal law. The court vacated petitioner's conviction and remanded with instructions to the district court to grant his petition because Simmons announced a new substantive rule that was retroactive on collateral review. View "Miller v. United States" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against a correctional officer alleging that he used excessive force against plaintiff. Without provocation, the officer assaulted plaintiff for about two minutes before the officer moved plaintiff to a holding cell, knocking his head against a gate on the way out. The prison staff then kept plaintiff in ambulatory restraints for seventeen hours following the assault. On appeal, the officer appealed the district court's denial of his Rule 50(b) motion for judgment as a matter of law. Because no extraordinary circumstances were applicable to plaintiff's injuries and he suffered no more than de minimis injury, he could not, at the time the assault took place, state a claim upon which relief could be granted under the Eighth Amendment. Therefore, the right he sought to avail himself of was not clearly established in the Fourth Circuit at the time of the alleged suit and the officer was entitled to qualified immunity. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Hill v. Crum" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to possession with intent to distribute cocaine base and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime. On appeal, defendant challenged the district court's application of the career offender enhancement, holding that his prior Virginia conviction categorically qualified as a crime of violence and constituted a predicate offense for the enhancement. The court held that a conviction under Virginia Code 18.2-57(C) for assault and battery of a police officer was not categorically a crime of violence because the offense of assault and battery referenced in that statute was defined by the common law, the elements of which did not substantiate a serious potential risk of injury in the usual case. However, the district court did not commit plain error in reaching a contrary conclusion, given the absence of controlling authority and the divergence of opinion among other circuits. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Carthorne, Sr." on Justia Law