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

Dominion and Bransen entered into a contract wherein Bransen was paid $27 million for coal product which would satisfy rigid specifications and environmental regulations. When Bransen failed to deliver product meeting the requirements, Dominion filed suit in district court. Dominion was awarded partial summary judgment on claims related to Bransen's delivery of coke breeze, and the district court held in favor of Dominion after a bench trial on its claims related to the delivery of waste coal. The district court awarded Dominion $22 million in damages. The court affirmed the district court's ruling in favor of Dominion as to liability where Bransen was liable for delivery product that did not satisfy the contracts between the parties. The court rejected Bransen's argument that the district court awarded damages, including indirect damages, in violation of Section 8.8 of the parties' contract, and rejected Bransen's challenges to the calculation of the damages award. Because the court found no error, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "Virginia Electric and Power v. Bransen Energy" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his 188 month sentence after pleading guilty to four counts of possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon. Because the district court made it clear that it would have given defendant the same sentence if the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e), did not apply, and the sentence was substantively reasonable, the court concluded that any alleged guidelines calculation error was harmless. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. McDonald" on Justia Law

Defendant, a disbarred attorney, was convicted of mail fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and aggravated identity theft stemming from her scheme to defraud her client. On appeal, defendant argued that she was entitled to a Franks v. Delaware hearing because the client/witness's testimony called into question the validity of the warrant to search defendant's residence. The court concluded that the district court did not err in finding that defendant failed to make the requisite showing for a Franks hearing where defendant could not point to a false statement and defendant failed to establish the requisite scienter. The court also concluded that the district court did not err by applying a two-level enhancement for misrepresentation of a government agency under USSG 2B1.1(b)(9)(A); by applying a two-level sophisticated-means enhancement under USSG 2B1.1 cmt 9(B); and by sentencing defendant at the top end of the Guidelines range. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. White" on Justia Law

After defendant pled guilty to failure to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), 18 U.S.C. 2250(a), the district court sentenced defendant to 15 months in prison, followed by five years of supervised release. Defendant appealed the district court's imposition as a special condition of supervised release that he undergo a sex-offender evaluation. The court concluded that the district court acted well within its broad discretion by imposing the condition where it was reasonably related to the nature and circumstances of the offense and the history and characteristics of defendant, including his prior sex offense and the extraordinary steps he took to avoid registration and apprehension by law enforcement for many years; the condition was also reasonably related to the need to protect the public from further crimes of defendant, to provide defendant with needed treatment in the most effective manner, and to afford adequate deterrence to criminal conduct in the future; and the district court's approach of imposing a single condition, and declining to impose additional conditions unless the evaluation were to indicate that they are warranted, reflected the district court's measured judgment to impose conditions causing no greater a deprivation of liberty than was reasonably necessary to satisfy those factors. Because the sentence imposed was procedurally and substantively reasonable, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Douglas" on Justia Law

Petitioner filed a petition for the return of her child under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, Oct. 25, 1980, T.I.A.S. No. 11,670, 19 I.L.M. 1501, as implemented by the International Child Abduction Remedies Act (ICARA), 22 U.S.C. 9001 et seq. The district court denied the petition. The court concluded that the district court did not clearly err in finding that respondent was "more believable" and petitioner did not challenge that determination. The court agreed with the district court that the preponderance of the evidence demonstrated that petitioner consented to respondent's removal of the child to the United States. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Padilla v. Troxell" on Justia Law

Robert S. Roland and his wife filed suit against USCIS and related government officials after Roland's Form I-130 Petition for Alien Relative, filed on behalf of his wife, was denied. The USCIS concluded that Roland posed a risk to his wife based on his prior convictions for criminal offenses, including sexual offenses against minors. The district court granted summary judgment to USCIS, concluding that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction under 8 U.S.C. 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii). Based on the plain language of section 1252(a)(2)(B)(ii) and its application of the same in Lee v. U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Servs., the court agreed that the district court lacked subject matter of certain discretionary agency decisions, including the denial of an application for adjustment of status. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Roland v. USCIS" on Justia Law

After petitioner unsuccessfully challenged his liability in a preassessment hearing before the Office of Appeals of the IRS, he sought to raise the same issue before the same administrative unit in his collection due process (CDP) hearing. The Office of Appeals concluded that Section 6330 of the Internal Revenue Code, I.R.C. 6330, prohibited him from disputing his liability a second time, and the Tax Court agreed. The court explained that petitioner was afforded a meaningful opportunity to challenge the imposition and amount of the reporting penalty: he had the ability to request a preassessment hearing before the Office of Appeals. The court determined that this was sufficient under Section 6330(c)(2)(B). The court also held that Section 6330(c)(4) barred petitioner from challenging his liability in the CDP context. Therefore, the court concluded that the Commissioner was entitled to judgment as a matter of law, and the court affirmed the Tax Court's judgment. View "Iames v. Commissioner of IRS" on Justia Law

In 2003, a group of doctors filed a nationwide class action against Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and its member entities, including Blue Cross NC (Love v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield Ass'n). The doctors alleged that the Blue Cross companies used several underhanded business practices to deny, delay, and reduce payments for medical treatments based solely on considerations of cost. After Blue Cross NC filed suit against debtor and his clinic in 2006, debtor filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy for himself and on behalf of his clinic. Debtor then removed Blue Cross NC's suit to the bankruptcy court, asserting affirmative defenses and nine counterclaims that were essentially the same as in Love. In 2007, the Love parties entered into a settlement and enjoined the doctors from litigating any released claims. It was undisputed that debtor was a putative member of the Love class and that this injunction applied to his first seven counterclaims. Ten months after the Love court had issued its injunction, Blue Cross NC informed the bankruptcy court of the injunction. In 2009, after a nearly two-year hiatus in the North Carolina bankruptcy proceedings, debtor filed a motion for sanctions against Blue Cross NC. The bankruptcy court granted the motion, finding that Blue Cross NC purposefully avoided informing the court and debtor about the Love settlement and the injunction, causing the lost of counterclaims worth potentially millions, delayed litigation, and attorneys fees and costs. The bankruptcy court dismissed Blue Cross NC's claims with prejudice and ordered it to pay debtor a total of $1.29 million in attorneys' fees and costs. The court concluded that the bankruptcy court did not err in finding that Blue Cross NC acted in bad faith. However, the court explained that the sanctions were excessive and based on a faulty premise: that Blue Cross NC bore the responsibility for debtor's lack of diligence. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina v. Jemsek Clinic, P.A." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendants, alleging that they forced her to provide labor in violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA), 18 U.S.C. 1589. Specifically, plaintiff alleged six claims of involuntary servitude and illegal trafficking stemming from her work as a live-in housemaid to defendants. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants. Drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of plaintiff, the court agreed with the district court's determination that plaintiff's evidence was insufficient to satisfy the requirements of the forced labor statute and that defendants were entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. In this case, plaintiff failed to develop sufficient evidence upon which a jury could reasonably conclude that defendants knowingly forced or coerced her to come to the United States, or to remain in their employ against her will, by means of serious psychological harm or abuse of law or legal process, when she otherwise would have left and returned to her home country of Kenya. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Muchira v. Al-Rawaf" on Justia Law

Petitioner, convicted of federal drug and firearms offenses, appealed the denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion for habeas relief based on ineffective assistance of counsel. Specifically, petitioner claimed that his counsel's performance was deficient because she failed to bring to the attention of the trial court the fact that, before the trial began, a member of the jury approached petitioner's father while entering the courthouse and told him that "everything would be alright" and that he needed to give his son "a good kick in the butt," thereby allegedly demonstrating bias against petitioner. The court concluded that counsel's response fell within the range of competent representation required by the Sixth Amendment because the juror's alleged statement did not sufficiently indicate actual bias against petitioner but was instead ambiguous. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Powell" on Justia Law