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

Plaintiff, a former federal prisoner, filed suit alleging a number of violations under the Fourth, Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, against several federal prison officials pursuant to Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's grant of defendants' motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff argues that, in dismissing three claims that defendants were deliberately indifferent to his medical needs, the district court made credibility determinations and weighed the parties’ evidence, thus violating the summary judgment standard. The court reversed the district court's disposition of the two Eighth Amendment claims against Dr. Phillip and Administrator McClintock. In this case, the court concluded that there is sufficient evidence that plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment right to adequate medical care and freedom from officials’ deliberate indifference to his medical needs was violated and that the right was clearly established. The court affirmed the district court's resolution of the claim against Warden Stansberry. View "Scinto, Sr. v. Warden Stansberry" on Justia Law

CIT obtained a judgment against defendant in the Eastern District of Virginia. Under Virginia law, that judgment remained viable for 20 years. Roughly 10 years after the judgment had been entered, on August 27, 2003, CIT registered the judgment in the District of Maryland pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1963. Under Maryland law, made relevant by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 69(a), judgments expire 12 years after entry. After CIT sold the judgment to Wells Fargo, Wells Fargo began collection efforts in April 2015. The district court concluded that the time limitation for enforcement of the judgment began with the date of its registration in Maryland, on August 27, 2003, and that therefore it was still enforceable against defendant. The court held that the registration of the Virginia district court judgment in the District of Maryland at a time when the judgment was not time-barred by Virginia law functions as a new judgment in the District of Maryland, and Maryland’s 12-year limitations period for enforcement on the judgment begins running from the date of registration. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Wells Fargo Equipment Finance v. Asterbadi" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit in Virginia state court against Appellants and others, alleging that plaintiff's husband, Bernard W. Ripley, was exposed to asbestos contained in products Appellants manufactured for the Navy, and that Appellants are liable for failure to warn of asbestos hazards. Appellants removed the case pursuant to the federal officer removal statute to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The district court remanded to state court, citing longstanding precedent in the district that denies the government contractor defense in failure to warn cases. However, given the weight of opposing precedent and the rationales supporting the defense, the court held that the government contractor defense is available in failure to warn cases. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for the district court to consider whether Appellants have presented sufficient proof to warrant removal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1442. View "Ripley v. Foster Wheeler LLC" on Justia Law

After the Board found that nurses could unionize and rejected the employer’s contention that they were ineligible supervisors within the meaning of the National Labor Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 152(11), the employer refused to bargain with the union. When the Board ordered the employer to do so, the employer petitioned for review. The court concluded that substantial evidence supports the Board’s finding that the nurses are not supervisors because their duties do not require the exercise of independent judgment. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review and granted the Board's cross-application for enforcement. View "Palmetto Prince George Operating v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against United Airlines for retaliation under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. 2601 et seq. The district court granted summary judgment for United Airlines. United Airlines had discharged plaintiff for fraudulently taking FMLA leave and for making dishonest representations during the ensuing investigation. The court concluded that, even drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of plaintiff as the nonmoving party, Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., plaintiff has failed to create an issue of triable fact that the explanation United Airlines provided for his discharge was a pretext for retaliation for taking FMLA leave. In this case, the evidence taken as a whole plainly paints the picture of an employee who used FMLA leave to avoid interrupting his vacation, and then gave a variety of inconsistent explanations for his behavior upon his return. The court explained that to hold otherwise would disable companies from attaching any sanction or consequence to the fraudulent abuse of a statute designed to enable workers to take leave for legitimate family needs and medical reasons. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Sharif v. United Airlines, Inc." on Justia Law

On March 8, 2012, as high school students were being released from school, Officer Church received a call for back-up and arrived to find juveniles running through the streets. Officer Jackson was struggling to arrest one of them. Smith was standing outside of her car with her phone up as if videotaping. Officer Church, over 50 feet away, yelled, “Ma’am, pull your car to the side or keep on going.” Smith replied, “I’m not going to let you hurt that young boy. I ain’t moving.” Church moved closer, told her this was a traffic stop, and asked for her license. Smith “ran back into her car.” A struggle ensued. The parties disagree about the details. Church arrested Smith. The charges were eventually dropped. Smith sued the police department and officers under 42 U.S.C. 1983. At trial, the court allowed defense counsel to elicit testimony that Smith had been arrested three times before. The jury returned a verdict in favor of the officers on all counts. The Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded, finding Smith’s prior arrests not relevant to her claim for damages, which was the sole reason the court admitted them, and that any probative value of those arrests was far outweighed by prejudice to Smith, in violation of Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). View "Smith v. Baltimore City Police Department" on Justia Law

A federal grand jury indicted Maria Rosalba Alvarado McTague and Felix Chujoy on charges of visa fraud and various immigration violations stemming from their operation of a Peruvian restaurant in Virginia. In this interlocutory appeal, the government challenges the district court's order excluding grand jury testimony from use at trial without having found prosecutorial misconduct or bad faith in the underlying grand jury proceeding. The court found that the district court abused its discretion where it failed to provide a sufficient explanation for its decision, its stated reasons do not comport with precedent or the facts of record, and its conclusion regarding “fundamental fairness” provides no legal standard by which to measure the appropriateness of the evidentiary exclusion. Nevertheless, the court rejected the government’s argument that the district court may never exclude grand jury evidence except as a sanction for prosecutorial misconduct. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. McTague" on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of China, seeks review of the BIA's decision denying his requests for asylum, withholding of removal, and protection under the United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT). The court concluded that the accounts in the State Department reports, which document only isolated instances of harassment and disparate treatment of unregistered Catholic churches in different locations, substantially support the Board’s finding of a lack of widespread persecution. Therefore, the court affirmed the Board's conclusion that petitioner failed to establish a well-founded fear of persecution based on his Catholic religion. Because petitioner failed to meet his burden of proof for asylum, the court necessarily held that petitioner has not shown that he is entitled to withholding of removal. Finally, because plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies as to his CAT claim, the court lacked jurisdiction to review it. Accordingly, the court denied the petition for review. View "Tang v. Lynch" on Justia Law

Petitioner was indicted for murder and other crimes committed while he was a minor over twenty years ago. Petitioner pled guilty in exchange for a life sentence with the opportunity for parole. Petitioner now challenges the validity of his guilty plea and appeals the district court’s denial of relief on his 28 U.S.C. 2254 petition. The court granted a certificate of appealability on the limited issue of whether Roper v. Simmons, which invalidated the death penalty for juvenile offenders, may be applied retroactively to invalidate petitioner's guilty plea. The court held that Roper does not provide an avenue for relief and concluded that the district court correctly found that Roper did not apply to situations where a defendant pled guilty to a non-capital sentence to avoid the possibility of a capital sentence. Furthermore, in light of Brady v. United States, the court found no infirmity in the plea that petitioner entered. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court’s dismissal of his federal habeas petition. View "Dingle v. Stevenson" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of conspiracy, making a false statement, theft, and embezzlement, all in connection with her unlawful receipt of government benefits. Defendant argues that, in the affidavit supporting the search warrant for the house, the affiant recklessly omitted material, exculpatory facts. The critical information that defendant maintains the special agent recklessly omitted from his affidavit were facts demonstrating that she and her husband “occupied different parts of the house.” The court affirmed the district court's denial of defendant's motion to suppress, concluding that the inclusion of the omitted information would not have defeated probable cause for the search and thus that information was not material. View "United States v. Wharton" on Justia Law