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

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's action challenging various aspects of the Credit Union's website under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Plaintiff, a blind individual, alleged that his attempt to access the Credit Union's website was hindered in various ways. The court held that plaintiff, who is barred by law from making use of the Credit Union's services may not sue under the ADA for an allegedly deficient website. In this case, plaintiff was not eligible for membership in the Credit Union where he does not work for the Department of Labor and never has in the past. Accordingly, the court concluded that plaintiff's injury was not concrete, particularized, or immediately threatening. View "Griffin v. Department of Labor Federal Credit Union" on Justia Law

Relator appealed the district court's dismissal of his qui tam action against his former employer, United Airlines, under the False Claims Act. The Fourth Circuit held that the district court properly dismissed plaintiff's complaint as to the substantive claims under 31 U.S.C. 3729(a)(1)(A)–(B), because he failed to plead his claims with the requisite particularity.However, the court held that plaintiff pleaded retaliation under section 3730(h), and the district court therefore erred in holding that plaintiff failed to plead sufficient facts to withstand the motion to dismiss. In this case, under the objective reasonableness standard, plaintiff sufficiently alleged that he was engaged in protected activity, United knew about the protected activity, and United terminated plaintiff because he engaged in the protected activity. View "United States ex rel. Grant v. United Airlines, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of DOC officials in an 42 U.S.C. 1983 action alleging due process violations. Plaintiff claimed that, as a result of actions of defendants, he suffered in solitary confinement for three-and-a-half years while in pretrial detention, in violation of his Fourteenth Amendment rights.Determining that it had appellate jurisdiction and the due process claims were not moot, the Fourth Circuit held that Defendants Charlton and Miller were entitled to summary judgment on each of the due process claims because they lacked sufficient personal involvement in the alleged constitutional deprivations. The court held, however, that Director Stirling and Sheriff Carroll were not entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiff's substantive and procedural due process claims arising from plaintiff's solitary confinement as a safekeeper. Because neither the report or the summary judgment properly applied the legal principles that control substantive and procedural due process claims being pursued by a pretrial detainee, the court held that the district court erred in awarding summary judgment to Director Stirling and Sheriff Carroll on these claims. View "Williamson v. Stirling" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of petitioner's successive 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion in this criminal proceeding stemming from murders committed four decades ago. The court rejected petitioner's prosecutorial misconduct claim based on the discovered evidence of a former Deputy U.S. Marshal that a threat from a prosecutor stopped another individual from confessing on the witness stand during petitioner's trial. The court also rejected petitioner's freestanding actual innocence claim premised on DNA testing. The court held that petitioner failed to overcome the procedural bar of section 2255(h)(1), because neither claim was based on newly discovered evidence that, if proven and viewed in light of the evidence as a whole, would be sufficient to establish by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable factfinder would have found petitioner guilty of murdering his wife and daughters.In the alternative, the court held that the prosecutorial misconduct claim failed on the merits where the factual findings were well-supported by the evidence and not clearly erroneous. Furthermore, petitioner failed to meet his extraordinarily high burden of showing actual innocence. View "United States v. MacDonald" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's pretrial order denying his motion to release seized assets. The court held that there was probable cause to find that defendant used fraudulently obtained and laundered funds to make mortgage payments and property tax payments associated with his Virginia property, and that defendant used funds to pay for improvements to both of his properties. Therefore, the court held that there was probable cause to find that the properties were involved in and traceable to defendant's wire fraud and money laundering charges and were thus forfeitable. View "United States v. Miller" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's dismissal of their civil rights actions under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 and 42 U.S.C. 1983, seeking the reinstatement of three claims: a Title IX sex discrimination claim against the University of Mary Washington; a Title IX retaliation claim against UMW; and a section 1983 claim against UMW's former president, Dr. Richard Hurley, for violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.The Fourth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the section 1983 claim and held that, at the time of President Hurley's challenged conduct, the equal protection right to be free from a university administrator's deliberate indifference to student-on-student sexual harassment was not clearly established by either controlling authority or by a robust consensus of persuasive authority. The court vacated the dismissal of the retaliation claim insofar as it is premised on UMW’s deliberate indifference to student-on-student retaliatory harassment. The court affirmed the dismissal of the aspect of the retaliation claim that relied exclusively on President Hurley's June 2015 letter. Finally, the panel vacated the dismissal of the Title IX sex discrimination claim against UMW where plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged a sex discrimination claim under Title IX, predicated on UMW's deliberate indifference to the specified student-on-student harassment. View "Feminist Majority Foundation v. Hurley" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit dismissed defendant's appeal as untimely under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 4(b). In the alternative, the court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in vacating only defendant's conviction and sentence on the 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(1) count and not ordering a resentencing on defendant's carjacking conviction.In this case, after the Fourth Circuit issued its decision in United States v. Simmons, 649 F.3d 237 (4th Cir. 2011) (en banc), defendant filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. 2255, challenging his section 922(g)(1) conviction and sentence, as well as his carjacking sentence. The government agreed that defendant was actually innocent of the section 922(g)(1) conviction because he was not a felon at the time. The government thus waived its defenses on the waiver of defendant's plea agreement and the statute of limitations under 28 U.S.C. 2253(f) in order to allow vacatur of defendant's sentence. The district court subsequently granted defendant partial relief, vacating the section 922(g)(1) conviction and sentence but declining to resentence him on the other two counts. View "United States v. Chaney" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for numerous offenses related to his alleged distribution of controlled substances. The court held that the district court reversibly erred in refusing to suppress inculpatory statements defendant made during a custodial interrogation; the district court erred in failing to conduct an in camera review of confidential law enforcement records requested by defendant when he established the confidential records plausibly contained materially favorable information; and therefore the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Abdallah" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal, based on lack of personal jurisdiction in Virginia, of an action for breach of contract and related causes against Associated Broadcasting. The court held that plaintiff failed to demonstrate that Associated Broadcasting had the minimum contacts with Virginia that were sufficient to satisfy the Due Process Clause. In this case, Plaintiff Sneha Media was a Virginia company, Plaintiff Nord Sinew was an Indian company, and Associated Broadcasting was an Indian company. Associated Broadcasting carries on its business solely in India, and, by a contract executed in India, it gave Nord the right to distribute its TV9 programming elsewhere. Furthermore, the only relevant contact that Associated Broadcasting had with Virginia was a single meeting. View "Sneha Media & Entertainment v. Associated Broadcasting Company" on Justia Law

Plaintiff and her daughter filed suit against the county, challenging an in-school Bible lesson program for public elementary and middle school students as violating the Establishment Clause. The Fourth Circuit reversed the district court's dismissal of the complaint, holding that plaintiffs have standing because they alleged two actual, ongoing injuries: (1) near-daily avoidance of contact with an alleged state-sponsored religious exercise, and (2) enduring feelings of marginalization and exclusion resulting therefrom. The court also held that plaintiffs' claims were redressable because an injunction would meaningfully redress their injuries. The court also held that the district court erred in treating the temporary suspension of the program as raising ripeness concerns, and plaintiffs' claims were not moot. View "Deal v. Mercer County Board of Education" on Justia Law