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

A Virginia jury convicted Petitioner of involuntary manslaughter after his car crashed into a tree killing the front seat passenger. The jury concluded that Petitioner was driving under the influence at the time of the crash. Petitioner subsequently sought post-conviction relief in Virginia state court, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel. Petitioner, who insisted he was not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the accident, asserted that his lawyer failed to investigate evidence of the operation and use of the driver’s seatbelt. Ultimately, the Supreme Court of Virginia, after considering the full record, held that, although the counsel’s performance fell below the standard of care, that failure did not prejudice Petitioner. Crockett brought a federal habeas petition under 28 U.S.C. Section 2254.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s denial of Petitioner’s Section 2254 petition. The court reasoned that The Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”) precludes a federal court from granting habeas relief on a claim decided on the merits in a state court unless it determines the state court’s decision was contrary to or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established federal law or was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the record evidence. That standard of review proves fatal to Petitioner’s habeas claims. While one might reasonably come to a different conclusion than the Supreme Court of Virginia, the court’s decision was far from unreasonable. View "Cameron Crockett v. Harold Clarke" 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

Plaintiff, a North Carolina attorney, believed he uncovered fraud perpetrated by forty-five adult care homes upon the United States and the State of North Carolina. According to Plaintiff, Defendants violated a North Carolina Medicaid billing regulation, and did so knowingly, as evidenced by the clarity of the regulation and by the fact Defendants did not ask the regulators for advice. The district court granted Defendants’ motion for summary judgment, holding that Plaintiff failed to proffer evidence showing “that the bills submitted by Defendants to North Carolina Medicaid for PCS reimbursement were materially false or made with the requisite scienter.”   The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision. The court held that no reasonable juror could find Defendants acted with the requisite scienter on Plaintiff’s evidence. The court explained that The False Claims Act (“FCA”) imposes civil liability on “any person who . . . knowingly presents, or causes to be presented” to the Federal Government “a false or fraudulent claim for payment or approval.” The Act’s scienter requirement defines “knowingly” to mean that a person “has actual knowledge of the information,” “acts in deliberate ignorance of the truth or falsity of the information,” or “acts in reckless disregard of the truth or falsity of the information.” Here, Plaintiff failed to identify any evidence that Defendants knew, or even suspected, that their interpretation of the relevant policy and the guidance from NC Medicaid was incorrect. Nor did Plaintiff identify any evidence that Defendants attempted to avoid discovering how the regulation applied to adult care homes. View "US ex rel. Stephen Gugenheim v. Meridian Senior Living, LLC" on Justia Law

Defendant and others came upon a start-up airline called People Express, but People Express had trouble securing funding. Defendant spearheaded an effort to use restricted state and federal funds as collateral to secure a bank loan for People Express. After People Express defaulted on the loan, Defendant was indicted, tried, and convicted of federal program fraud, money laundering, and perjury.   On appeal, Defendant maintained that there was insufficient evidence to support conviction on some counts, as well as that the district court erred by refusing to give a particular jury instruction, excluding a certain piece of evidence, and entering a forfeiture money judgment without notice.   The Fourth Circuit found one of Defendant’s arguments persuasive and reversed the conviction on Count 19, and affirmed the district court’s judgment of convictions and sentences as to the other counts. In regards to Defendant’s federal program fraud conviction, as charged in Count 19, the question presented was whether Section 666(a)(1)(A)(i) criminalizes multiple conversions of less than $5,000, if the government must point to conversions that took place over more than one year to reach the $5,000 statutory minimum. The court concluded that Section 666 requires each transaction used to reach the aggregate $5,000 requirement to occur within the same one-year period aligns with the conclusions of other circuit courts that have considered the issue. Thus, the court reversed finding that the government failed to present evidence showing that, within a one-year period, Defendant committed one or more acts of conversion with an aggregate value of $5,000 or more. View "US v. Kenneth Spirito" on Justia Law

Plaintiff alleged that his employer, the Alexandria Fire Department, intentionally discriminated against him because of his race in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Section 2000e et seq. After Plaintiff saw white colleagues on other Fire Department shifts receive internships before him, he believed that the Fire Department was violating its placement practice and delaying his promotion because he is Black. The Fire Department explained that the first-come, first-served practice is shift-specific. The district court granted Defendant’s summary judgment motion.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s ruling holding that Plaintiff offered no evidence to prove that the Fire Department’s explanation—which is supported by its practice—is pretextual. The court explained that to establish the fourth element of his prima facia case, an inference of unlawful discrimination, Plaintiff claimed that the Fire Department had a practice of placing applicants with the first available field training officer regardless of shift, but the Department placed three later-certified white firefighters into the program ahead of him. However, the Fire Department’s evidence supports its claim that it places interns with training officers on a first-come, first-served basis within each shift. The court found that Plaintiff’s evidence only shows that he misunderstood the Fire Department’s internship placement practice. View "Micheall Lyons v. City of Alexandria" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs., a Florida-based wine retailer, plus its owner and three North Carolina residents, initiated a 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 action, challenging a North Carolina alcoholic beverage control regime as unconstitutional. More specifically, the Plaintiffs alleged that North Carolina’s regime, which prohibits out-of-state retailers — but not in-state retailers — from shipping wine directly to consumers in North Carolina (the “Retail Wine Importation Bar”), contravenes the Constitution’s dormant Commerce Clause. The Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief and named the Chair of the North Carolina Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission as a defendant (“N.C. Commission”). The district court awarded summary judgment to the N.C. Commission.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed the ruling, holding that even though the Retail Wine Importation Bar discriminates against interstate commerce — it is authorized by Section 2 of the 21st Amendment. The court explained that its analysis of North Carolina’s Retail Wine Importation Bar under the Tennessee Wine framework led the court to conclude that, although the Bar discriminates against interstate commerce, it is nevertheless justified on the legitimate non- protectionist ground of preserving North Carolina’s three-tier system. View "B-21 Wines, Inc. v. Hank Bauer" on Justia Law

By grant of summary judgment in favor of the United States, the district court held that the Government’s provision of substitute facilities to Arlington County, Virginia (“the County”) constituted just compensation for the taking of three parcels of property. The County appealed, contesting the district court’s application of the summary judgment standard and raising several substantive arguments in support.The Fourth Circuit, finding error in the district court’s grant of summary judgment, vacated the district court’s ruling and remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The court concluded that the district court circumvented the summary judgment standard when it engaged in fact-finding despite the presence of genuinely disputed material facts. The court was persuaded that the genuine disputes identified as to the nature of one of the parcels were material. It is this contested distinction of that parcel that the district court overlooked when drawing inferences in favor of the Government, effectively determining as a decision on the merits that the parcel was not a separate parcel for condemnation purposes from the rest of the take. While the district court would not have committed procedural error by making that decision under Rule 71.1, it did err as such when resolving the case in a Rule 56 proceeding. View "US v. 8.929 Acres of Land in Arlington County, Virginia" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his 84-month sentence for distribution of child pornography. He argued that the district court procedurally erred when it applied two enhancements which increased the suggested sentencing range under the Sentencing Guidelines. The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court’s application of that enhancement, vacated Defendant’s sentence, and remanded for resentencing.   The five-level exchange-for-value enhancement under Section 2G2.2(b)(3)(B) of the Sentencing Guidelines. In applying this enhancement over Defendant’s objection, the district court looked to the Fourth Circuit’s 2013 decision in United States v. McManus, 734 F.3d 315. Defendant argued that this was an error because McManus does not provide the proper test for defendants, like him, who were sentenced after a 2016 amendment to the Guidelines took effect.   The Fourth Circuit held that the district court procedurally erred when it applied two enhancements that increased the suggested sentencing range under the Sentencing Guidelines. Specifically, one of those enhancements is a five-level increase under Section 2G2.2(b)(3)(B) of the Guidelines. The court reasoned that the 2016 Guidelines amendment abrogated its holding in McManus for defendants sentenced after the effective date of the 2016 Guidelines. In light of the new standard imposed by the 2016 Guidelines, the district court’s application of the enhancement was an error, and that error was not harmless. View "US v. Jonathan Morehouse" on Justia Law

White Coat Waste Project (“WCW”) tried to run an advertisement denouncing animal experimentation with the Greater Richmond Transit Company (“Richmond Transit”) the ad was denied for being impermissibly “political.” WCW sued, challenging that denial as a violation of its First Amendment rights. Richmond Transit responded that, as a private company, it is not bound by the First Amendment, and even if it were, its policy passes constitutional muster because it only restrains speech in a nonpublic forum.   The district court disagreed on both counts, concluding that Richmond Transit is a state actor subject to constitutional constraints and that its policy violates the First Amendment right to free speech. But the district court granted WCW only partial summary judgment, holding that it could not provide the facial relief WCW sought because public-transit political-advertising bans can sometimes accord with the Constitution.   The Fourth Circuit concluded that the district court correctly identified Richmond Transit as a state actor and held that Richmond Transit’s policy is not “capable of reasoned application” and is therefore unconstitutionally unreasonable. Further, the court held that the district court erred in denying facial relief. Even if another public-transit political-advertising ban may be constitutional, this ban is incapable of reasoned, constitutional application in all circumstances. Thus, it is facially unconstitutional and warrants facial relief. View "White Coat Waste Project v. Greater Richmond Transit Co." on Justia Law

8 U.S.C. Section 1226(a) permits the Attorney General to detain aliens pending their removal hearings. Under those procedures, an alien is given notice and three opportunities to seek release by showing they are neither a flight risk nor a danger to the community.   A district court determined that a class of aliens had a likelihood of establishing that those procedures violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. That court then issued a preliminary injunction ordering, on a class-wide basis, that to continue detaining an alien under Section 1226(a), the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that an alien is either a flight risk or a danger to the community. The district court also required immigration judges to consider an alien’s ability to pay any bond imposed and consider alternatives to detention.   The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s preliminary injunction order and held that under Section 1252(f)(1), the district court lacked jurisdiction to issue class-wide injunctive relief that enjoined or restrained the process used to conduct Section 1226(a) bond hearings. Further, the detention procedures adopted for Section 1226(a) bond hearings provide sufficient process to satisfy constitutional requirements. The court concluded for that reason-the aliens are unable to establish a likelihood of success on their due process claims. Nor have they shown that they are likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in their favor or that an injunction is in the public interest. View "Marvin Miranda v. Merrick Garland" on Justia Law