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

Plaintiffs, four Maryland consumers, filed suit against Santander and its agents, alleging that defendants violated the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), 15 U.S.C.1692-1692p, by engaging in prohibited collection practices when collecting on plaintiffs’ automobile loans. The court affirmed the district court's grant of Santander's motion to dismiss on the ground that the complaint did not allege facts showing that Santander qualified as a “debt collector” subject to the FDCPA. The court concluded that the FDCPA generally does not regulate creditors when they collect debt on their own account and that, on the facts alleged by plaintiffs, Santander became a creditor when it purchased the loans before engaging in the challenged practices. View "Henson v. Santander Consumer USA, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, through her next friends and guardians, filed a complaint in state court against Matt Blair and Res-Care. Res-Care removed to federal court, asserting subject matter jurisdiction based on diversity of citizenship. The district court sua sponte remanded the case back to state court, determining that federal diversity jurisdiction has not been established because Res-Care did not allege the state in which it had its principal place of business. The court concluded that it had jurisdiction to review the district court's remand order because the district court based its remand order on a procedural defect in the removal notice. The court held that a district court exceeds its statutory authority when it remands a case sua sponte based on a procedural defect absent a motion from a party. In this case, the district court exceeded its statutory authority by remanding this case sua sponte. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded. View "Jane Doe #1 v. Blair" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, an inmate at a Virginia correctional facility, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that defendant's deliberate indifference to plaintiff's safety, and the resulting injuries, constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. Plaintiff was attacked by his cellmate after requesting a transfer from defendant, the Prison Housing Manager. The court concluded that genuine disputes of material fact underlie plaintiff's claim where plaintiff alleged specific facts describing the injuries he sustained as a result of the attack, and alleged two independent grounds for establishing defendant's subjective knowledge of the risk of assault. Therefore, the district court erred in granting summary judgment to defendant. The court vacated and remanded. View "Raynor v. Pugh" on Justia Law

Petitioner appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the government on his petition for habeas relief under 28 U.S.C. 2241. Petitioner challenges his prior civil commitment as a “sexually dangerous person” under the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, 18 U.S.C. 4248. The court concluded that Congress sufficiently expressed its intent that the Adam Walsh Act apply to all persons in the BOP’s custody who would pose a current threat to the public if released. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the government on petitioner’s retroactivity claim. The court concluded that, although the BOP records submitted by petitioner, even if they had been authenticated, are insufficient to demonstrate that the BOP relinquished its legal authority over him prior to the government’s filing of the section 4248 certificate, they are also largely unexplained. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment on petitioner's claim that he was not “in the custody” of the BOP when the section 4248 proceedings were initiated, and remanded for further proceedings on this issue. View "Matherly v. Andrews" on Justia Law

Defendant was convicted of charges related to his involvement in prostitution and drug rings. This appeal presents an issue of first impression in this Circuit: whether a defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel is violated when his counsel sleeps during trial. The court held that a defendant is deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel when counsel sleeps during a substantial portion of the defendant’s trial. In this case, multiple witnesses testified that counsel was asleep during multiple occasions. The court concluded that the fact that counsel was sleeping during defendant's trial amounted to constructive denial of counsel for substantial periods of that trial. Furthermore, the facts of this case are equally -if not more - egregious than the facts presented in cases where other circuits have presumed prejudice. Accordingly, the court vacated the conviction and sentence, directed entry of judgment in favor of defendant on his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion, and remanded for further proceedings. View "United States v. Ragin" on Justia Law

PHA filed suit against Wells Fargo, alleging that Wells Fargo falsely represented that it would forbear collection of the principal balance of a line of credit, ultimately causing PHA to default and enter bankruptcy. PHA subsequently filed suit in Virginia state court, which Wells Fargo removed to federal court. Along with repeating the claims made in the bankruptcy adversary complaint, PHA alleged new theories of lender liability. The district court dismissed the suit. The court rejected PHA's contention that the district court erroneously gave res judicata effect to various sale orders issued during PHA’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy, concluding that the elements of res judicata are satisfied. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment. View "Providence Hall Assoc. v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A." on Justia Law

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