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

A putative class of female former and current managers of Family Dollar stores filed suit alleging violations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e, and Section 216(b) of the Equal Pay Act of 1963, 29 U.S.C. 206(d). The court found that the district court's denial of leave to amend the complaint was based on an erroneous interpretation of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, and the denial was thus an abuse of discretion. Without resolving the class certification issue, the court reversed and remanded for the district court to consider whether, based on the court's interpretation of Wal-Mart, the proposed amended complaint satisfied the class certification requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23. View "Scott v. Family Dollar Stores, Inc." on Justia Law

Petitioner, a native and citizen of Mexico, petitioned for review of the BIA's order denying his application for cancellation of removal on the ground that he failed to meet the continuous physical presence requirement of 8 U.S.C. 1229b. The BIA has held that, pursuant to In re Romalez-Alcaide, an alien's continuous physical presence terminated when he voluntarily departed the United States under threat of removal. The court concluded that, in light of the fact that section 1229b was silent as to whether an alien's voluntary departure under threat of removal terminated his continuous physical presence in the country, the BIA's interpretation of the statute was reasonable. The court concluded that petitioner failed to meet his burden of proving that he was eligible for relief and denied the petition for review. View "Garcia v. Holder, Jr." on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his sentence and conviction for unlawfully possessing ammunition after being previously convicted of a crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year. The court concluded that the evidence was sufficient to support defendant's conviction; the district court did not plainly err in instructing the jury; but the district court's application of the modified categorical approach to support defendant's sentencing under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e), was in error. Accordingly, the court affirmed the conviction and reversed the sentence, remanding for resentencing. View "United States v. Royal" on Justia Law

Anthony Lawrence Dash filed suit against Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Mayweather Promotions, Mayweather Promotions LLC, Philthy Rich Records, Inc., and World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE), alleging that defendants violated his copyright by playing a variant of Dash's copyrighted music during Mayweather's entrance to two WWE events. On appeal, Dash challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment and its denial of reconsideration with respect to his entitlement to actual and profit damages under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 504(b). The court found that an expert's report's, (the Einhorn Report) estimation of Dash's lost licensing fee, without more, was too speculative to show that "a reasonable jury could return a verdict" in Dash's favor on his actual damages claim, and therefore, summary judgment was appropriate; even if the Einhorn Report had suggested or even expressly concluded that the use of Dash's beat at WWE events was of some value to defendants, summary judgment would still be appropriate because the evidence supporting such conclusion was overly speculative in light of the record before the court and, therefore, was insufficient to establish a genuine dispute regarding Dash's actual damages; and the district court properly granted defendant summary judgment on Dash's claim for profit damages because Dash provided the factfinder with no reasonable basis for concluding that the infringement contributed to defendants' profits. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Dash v. Mayweather, Jr." on Justia Law

College Newspapers challenged the ABC's ban on alcohol advertisements as violative of the First Amendment. The court concluded that the challenged regulation violated the First Amendment as applied to the College Newspapers where a regulation of commercial speech must satisfy all four Central Hudson Gas & Elec. Corp. v. Pub. Serv. Comm'n of N.Y. prongs in order to survive an as-applied challenge, and the regulation at issue here did not satisfy the fourth prong. The district court erred in concluding that the challenged regulation was appropriately tailored to achieve its objective of reducing abusive college drinking. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the ABC. View "Educational Media Co. v. Insley" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against the Sheriff of the City of Hampton, Virginia, in his individual capacity and in his official capacity, alleging that the Sheriff retaliated against plaintiffs in violation of their First Amendment rights by choosing not to reappoint them because of their support of his electoral opponent. The court concluded that, as to the claims of Plaintiffs Sandhofer, Woodward, and Bland, the district court properly analyzed the merits of the claims; as to the claims of Plaintiffs Carter, McCoy, and Dixon, the district court erred by concluding that plaintiffs failed to create a genuine dispute of material fact regarding whether the Sheriff violated their First Amendment rights; nevertheless, the district court properly ruled that the Sheriff was entitled to qualified immunity on Carter's McCoy's, and Dixon's claims seeking money damages against the Sheriff in his individual capacity, and that the Sheriff was entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity against those claims to the extent they sought monetary relief against him in his official capacity; and the Sheriff was not entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity on Carter's, McCoy's and Dixon's claims to the extent the remedy sought was reinstatement. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Bland v. Roberts" on Justia Law

Defendant, convicted of drug charges and a money laundering conspiracy, appealed the district court's denial of his 28 U.S.C. 2255 motion. The court concluded that the district court did not err in limiting its review to the 16 claims in the amended petition that were supported by facts and argument, particularly where many of the claims in the amended section 2255 motion were also raised in the original filing and the rest consisted only of vague and conclusory allegations; because a cursory review of the record revealed that the conspiracy charged here indisputably involved quantities of cocaine and cocaine base far in excess of the minimum amounts necessary to sustain the sentences, any Apprendi error did not seriously affect the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings so as to warrant notice; and defendant's remaining claims regarding ineffective assistance of counsel were without merit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Dyess" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Chesapeake seeking an injunction and damages based on claims arising from the drilling and operation by Chesapeake of three natural gas wells on surface property owned by plaintiffs. Chesapeake owns lease rights to minerals beneath plaintiffs' surface property and the property rights of both parties ultimately flowed from two severance deeds that originally split the surface and mineral estates of the 101 acres of land plaintiffs owned. The only issue on appeal was whether the district court erred when it granted summary judgment for Chesapeake on plaintiffs' claim for common law trespass. The court concluded that the district court was correct to hold that creating drill waste pits was reasonably necessary for recovery of natural gas and did not impose a substantial burden on plaintiffs' surface property, that creation of the pits was consistent with Chesapeake's rights under its lease, was a practice common to natural gas wells in West Virginia, and consistent with requirements of applicable rules and regulations for the protection of the environment. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Whiteman v. Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC" on Justia Law

This case concerned efforts by the Town of Nags Head, North Carolina, to declare beachfront properties that encroach onto "public trust lands" a nuisance, and regulate them accordingly. In the related appeal of Sansotta v. Town of Nags Head, the district court adjudicated the claims but concluded that it was inappropriate for a "federal court to intervene in such delicate state-law matters," and abstained from decision under Burford v. Sun Oil Co. The court reversed the district court's decision to abstain in this case where resolving the claims in this case was not sufficiently difficult or disruptive of that policy to free the district court from its "unflagging obligation to exercise its jurisdiction." Accordingly, the court remanded for further proceedings. View "Town of Nags Head v. Toloczko" on Justia Law

WCS filed suit against the Unions and the Fund under the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA), 29 U.S.C. 187, alleging that defendants orchestrated fourteen separate legal challenges against their commercial real estate project in order to force WCS to terminate their relationship with a non-unionized supermarket. WCS alleged that this was an illicit "secondary boycott" under 29 U.S.C. 158(b)(4)(ii)(B). The court affirmed the district court's decision to dismiss the complaint against the Fund because it was not a "labor organization" under the LMRA. The court concluded, however, that the district court erred in dismissing WCS's claims against the Unions where there remained a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the pattern of litigation alleged in WCS's complaint derived from "a policy of starting legal proceedings without regard to the merits and for the purpose of" waging a secondary boycott. Accordingly, the court vacated the dismissal of WCS's complaint as to the remaining union defendants and remanded for further proceedings. View "Waugh Chapel South, LLC v. United Food and Commercial Workers Union" on Justia Law