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

Plaintiffs filed suit against their employer, AT&T; their union, CWA; and CWA's local affiliate, Local 3702 under section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 185. Plaintiffs and AT&T settled, and the district court granted CWA and Local 3702's motion for summary judgment. The court held that a hybrid section 301 suit can not properly be used to challenge union conduct that, though obstructive, did not contribute to the employees’ failure to exhaust their contractual remedies for the employer’s conduct. The court held that a section 301 claim requires an allegation that the union’s breach of its duty of fair representation played some role in the employee’s failure to exhaust his contractual remedies. In this case, plaintiffs do not allege that the Union’s conduct prevented them from grieving their terminations under the collective bargaining agreement. And because plaintiffs did not file a grievance with the Union, the Union did not know that plaintiffs were terminated until after the contractual period for filing a grievance had passed. The court held that there must be some causal nexus between a union’s breach of its duty of fair representation and an employee’s failure to exhaust contractual remedies. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Groves v. Communication Workers of America" on Justia Law

Defendant pled guilty to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in violation of 18 U.S.C. 922(g) and the district court sentenced him to a fifteen-year mandatory minimum term of imprisonment under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). Defendant then filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. 2255 asserting actual innocent of the section 922(g) offense. The court agreed with defendant that because his civil rights had been restored by North Carolina following his discharge from parole and long before his 2012 arrest, none of his prior state convictions was a predicate felony conviction for purposes of sections 922(g) or 924(e). The court vacated the conviction and sentence because defendant pled guilty to a crime he could not commit. The court remanded with instructions to grant the section 2255 motion. View "United States v. Burleson" on Justia Law

Petitioner challenged the denial of his motion for relief from judgment under FRCP 60(b)(6). The district court held that petitioner's motion was not only untimely under Rule 60(c), but that a change in habeas decisional law, without more, is an insufficient basis for Rule 60(b)(6) relief. The court affirmed the district court's conclusion that the change in post-conviction procedural default rules fashioned by Martinez v. Ryan and Trevino v. Thaler did not constitute the kind of “extraordinary circumstance” needed to reopen petitioner's case. View "Moses v. Joyner" on Justia Law

This case arose out of a 2007 Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Job Opportunities (the Jobs MOU) signed by the Union and Peabody as part of a wider collective bargaining agreement. At issue on appeal is when and under what circumstances should the court review a labor arbitrator's decision. The court held that judicial involvement in the labor dispute in this case was premature where, under the complete arbitration rule, the arbitrator should have been given the opportunity to resolve both the liability and remedial phases of the dispute between the companies and the Union before it moved to federal court. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's order confirming the arbitrator's decision on the merits and directed that court to return the dispute to the arbitrator to allow him to rule on the remedial issues and otherwise complete the arbitration task. View "Peabody Holding Co. v. United Mine Workers of America" on Justia Law

The Hospital system filed suit seeking to obtain a writ of mandamus compelling HHS to adjudicate immediately its administrative appeals on claims for Medicare reimbursement. The parties agree that, as of February 2014, the Secretary had 480,000 appeals awaiting assignment to an ALJ, and the Secretary conceded in her brief that the number had by then climbed to more than 800,000 appeals, creating a ten-year backlog. The court concluded that the Medicare Act, 42 U.S.C. 1395 et seq., does not guarantee a healthcare provider a hearing before an ALJ within 90 days, as the Hospital System claims. Rather, it provides a comprehensive administrative process that a healthcare provider must exhaust before ultimately obtaining review in a United States district court. The court further concluded that the issuance of a judicial order now, however, directing the Secretary to hear the Hospital System’s claims in the middle of the administrative process, would unduly interfere with the process and, at a larger scale, the work of the political branches. Moreover, such intervention would invite other healthcare providers suffering similar delays to likewise seek a mandamus order, thereby effectively causing the judicial process to replace and distort the agency process. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint. View "Cumberland Cnty. Hosp. v. Burwell" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for knowingly and intentionally distributing heroin to Eric Thomas, causing Thomas' death from the use of the heroin distributed. The court concluded that, because there was no evidence in the record that Thomas could have died without the heroin, the jury’s verdict was necessarily consistent with the Supreme Court’s requirement of but-for causation; the district court’s decision not to elaborate on the meaning of the statutory results-in-death language did not amount to an abuse of discretion, let alone plain error, in light of that court’s legitimate concerns about confusing the jury; the court's decision in United States v. Patterson forecloses defendant's argument that the district court should have instructed the jury on the foreseeability of death; and the district court did not commit reversible error in admitting hearsay testimony that Thomas said he purchased heroin from “Fat Boy” because (1) even if the hearsay did not fall under a hearsay exception, its admission was harmless; and (2) the hearsay was not “testimonial” and therefore did not implicate defendant’s Sixth Amendment right of confrontation. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Alvarado" on Justia Law

Victims of a massive ponzi scheme centered in South Carolina obtained a judgment of over $150 million against Derivium and others. Plaintiffs are now pursuing others whom they claim also participated in the scheme. The district court granted Vision International's motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction under FRCP 12(b)(2). The district court also granted Randolph Anderson, Patrick Kelley, and Total Eclipse's motion for judgment as a matter of law on plaintiffs' claim for aiding and abetting common law fraud. Plaintiffs filed separate appeals on the two rulings. The court consolidated the appeals. The court concluded that, because the parties engaged in full discovery on the jurisdictional issue and fully presented the relevant evidence to the district court, that court properly addressed Vision International’s Rule 12(b)(2) motion by weighing the evidence, finding facts by a preponderance of the evidence, and determining as a matter of law whether plaintiffs carried their burden of demonstrating personal jurisdiction over Vision International. Further, the court agreed with the district court’s conclusion that South Carolina has not recognized a cause of action for aiding and abetting common law fraud and that it is not the court's role as a federal court to so expand state law. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment as to both appeals. View "Grayson v. Anderson" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit after her termination against her former employers for disability discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12112(a), and for other violations of state and federal law. The jury found in favor of plaintiff on certain state law claims and in favor of the employers on all other claims. The court concluded that the district court correctly applied a but-for causation standard to plaintiff's ADA claim; the court rejected plaintiff's claim that the district court erred in instructing the jury where the "prevents or significantly restricts" standard is too demanding under the ADA Amendments Act, Pub. L. No 110-325, section 5; even if the court assumes that the district court’s instruction was erroneous and that the error was plain, plaintiff has not shown that it affected her substantial rights; and the court rejected plaintiff's contention that the district court erred in instructing the jury on the “regarded as” prong of the definition of disability because she failed to show how she was prejudiced. Therefore, the court found no abuse of discretion and no serious prejudice to plaintiff that warrants vacating the verdict on her disability discrimination claims. Further, the court rejected plaintiff's challenge to the district court’s instruction on “record of” disability where she did not object to the instruction and on appeal did not explain how the omitted language applies to her case. Finally, the court rejected plaintiff's challenges to the damages the jury awarded on her state law claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Gentry v. East West Partners Club" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, diagnosed with leukemia, filed suit against CTS, alleging that CTS was responsible for dumping toxic solvents from an Asheville-area manufacturing plant into a local stream, and that childhood exposure to the contaminated stream water many years ago caused his leukemia. The district court dismissed the complaint, holding that North Carolina General Statutes Section 1-52(16) barred his action. The court concluded that the Supreme Court of North Carolina has not yet directly resolved whether Section 1-52(16) applies to disease claims. Because the court understood that under North Carolina law a disease is not a “latent injury,” the court concluded that the Supreme Court of North Carolina would not find Section 1-52(16) applicable to plaintiff’s claim. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Stahle v. CTS Corp." on Justia Law

Almost five years outside the window to file a timely motion, defendant filed a motion seeking post-conviction DNA testing pursuant to the Innocence Protection Act (IPA), 18 U.S.C. 3600–3600A. Defendant was convicted of various crimes related to an attempted robbery and murder. The district court concluded that the motion was untimely and refused to grant a certificate of appealability (COA). The court concluded that a COA is not required to appeal the denial of an IPA motion and therefore defendant's appeal is properly before this court. Applying a deferential standard, the court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that neither of the exceptions to untimeliness are applicable in this case. Therefore, the court concluded that the motion was untimely and affirmed the judgment. View "United States v. Cowley" on Justia Law