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

While serving his federal sentence, Appellant asked the warden of the facility where he was incarcerated to file a motion for compassionate release on his behalf. After the warden denied his request, Appellant moved for compassionate release in federal district court. In addition to the arguments for compassionate release that Appellant presented to the warden, which were related to his medical condition, Appellant’s motion for compassionate release in the district court included arguments that his convictions and sentence were unlawful. The district court denied Appellant’s motion.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that while it agreed with Appellant that he was not required to include the arguments about his convictions and sentence in his request for compassionate release to the warden, the court agreed with the district court that Appellant cannot challenge the validity of his convictions and sentence through a compassionate release motion. View "US v. Dwayne Ferguson" on Justia Law

Appellant appealed the district court’s dismissal of her amended complaint filed against her former employer, the United States Department of the Army. Appellant alleged that she experienced a hostile work environment due to race-based harassment from a co-worker and retaliation by her supervisors through both discrete acts and a retaliatory hostile work environment.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Appellant’s discrete-act retaliation claim but vacated its dismissal of her race-based hostile work environment and retaliatory hostile work environment claim. The court explained that Appellant has stated a prima facie case. The court wrote that an “employee’s decision to report discriminatory behavior cannot immunize that employee from those petty slights or minor annoyances that often take place at work and that all employees experience,” but the consistent (even if not constant) conduct Appellant alleged plausibly qualifies as materially adverse. The court further wrote that it agreed that Appellant failed to allege a non-speculative link between her Title VII claim and her non-selection. View "Marie Laurent-Workman v. Christine Wormuth" on Justia Law

Three independent contractors of Eastman Chemical Company were severely injured, one of them fatally, when a pump exploded during maintenance. Eastman moved to dismiss their state-law personal injury suits, contending that the contractors qualified as Eastman’s “statutory employees” under the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Law – which would mean that workers’ compensation was their exclusive remedy and that the courts lacked jurisdiction to hear their claims.   The district court agreed that Plaintiffs were Eastman’s “statutory employees” under the workers’ compensation law and dismissed their actions. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit held their cases in abeyance pending the decision of South Carolina’s Supreme Court in Keene v. CNA Holdings, LLC, 870 S.E.2d 156 (2021).   The Fourth Circuit reversed and remanded the district court’s ruling. The court explained that in Keene, when an employer makes a “legitimate business decision” to outsource a portion of its work, the contractors it hires to perform that work are not “statutory employees” for workers’ compensation purposes. 870 S.E.2d at 163. No party here contests that Eastman’s outsourcing of its maintenance and repair work was a “legitimate business decision.” It follows that the plaintiffs, independent contractors performing maintenance at the time of the 2016 pump explosion, were not statutory employees and may bring personal injury actions. View "Sallie Zeigler v. Eastman Chemical Company" on Justia Law

This securities fraud lawsuit arises from a series of statements made by K12, Inc., and two of its executives over the spring and summer of 2020. Plaintiffs, a class of K12 shareholders who acquired stock during that time, allege that the statements fraudulently misrepresented the state of K12’s business, thereby artificially inflating the cost of their shares. To survive dismissal under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (PSLRA), however, they must plead a “strong inference” of scienter, which requires establishing an inference of fraud to be “cogent and at least as compelling as any opposing inference.”   The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs claims because Plaintiffs do not satisfy the “heightened pleading instruction”. The court explained by including the language of “we believe,” the statement reflected not an incontestable fact but an individual perspective. The statement was couched as opinion, not as fact. While it is true that the prefatory clause contains an embedded assertion—that K12 is “an innovator in K-12 online education”— plaintiffs do not seriously contest this point. Nor do Plaintiffs deny, in more than conclusory fashion, that K12 “actually holds” its stated belief. Finally, Plaintiffs fail to show that K12’s opinion omitted necessary context. The company’s opinion was not simply emitted into the ether. It was made within the framework of a 10-K filing, where investors could have parsed the ample disclosures at their fingertips before succumbing to K12’s stated view. View "James Boykin v. K12, Inc." on Justia Law

Respondent has long struggled with mental illness and a proclivity to violent outbursts. In 2017, Williams assaulted a security guard in Portland, Oregon—a federal crime because it happened at a Social Security office. Respondent pleaded guilty and was sentenced to just over four years in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release. Federal prisoners on the cusp of being released may be civilly committed if they are “presently suffering from a mental disease or defect as a result of which [their] release would create a substantial risk” to the person or property of others. Here, the primary question is whether—in making such a risk assessment—a court must consider any terms of supervision that would govern the prisoner’s conduct post-release.   The Fourth Circuit held that a court must consider any terms of supervision that would govern the prisoner’s conduct post-release. Thus, because the record offers no assurances the district court appropriately considered the terms of Respondent’s supervised release before ordering him committed, the Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s order and remanded for further proceedings. View "US v. Nathaniel Williams" on Justia Law

Plaintiff a commercial-real-estate broker specializing in tenant representation sued Newmark Southern Region, LLC (Newmark)—an international real-estate brokerage and advisory firm. Plaintiff alleged eight state law claims, including breach of contract. Newmark counterclaimed, alleging only breach of contract. The district court dismissed each of Plaintiff’s claims at the pleading stage, with the exception of his claim for breach of contract. Following the district court’s judgment against him, Plaintiff appealed. In addition to seeking reversal of the judgment, Plaintiff also sought reversal of the district court’s dismissal of his various claims at the pleading stage.   The Fourth Circuit concluded that this situation warrants vacatur and remand for dismissal without prejudice. The court reasoned that first Plaintiff and Newmark agree that complete diversity did not exist between them at the time of filing, given the North Carolina citizenship of at least one limited partner of Newmark Holdings, L.P.—a great-grandparent entity to Newmark. Consequently, the district court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction over Plaintiff’s claims against Newmark pre-consolidation, so it lacked the power to consolidate the lawsuits in the first place.   Further, neither side of this dispute lacked the means to ascertain Newmark’s citizenship at any point. Whether mutual contentment with the federal forum or genuine obliviousness brought the parties to this unfortunate juncture, the court explained that it will not condone the exercise of jurisdiction where it did not truly exist. View "Timothy Capps v. Newmark Southern Region, LLC" on Justia Law

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) deported Petitioner, a permanent resident of the United States since he was six years old, because the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA or the Board) deemed his altercation with the police an aggravated felony. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that the type of offense Petitioner committed no longer qualified as an aggravated felony. Learning of that decision in 2019, Petitioner moved the BIA to reconsider its original removal order and to equitably toll the usual thirty-day deadline for filing such motions in view of the legal change. The BIA declined. It did not dispute that Petitioner is entitled to be readmitted into the country, but it rejected Petitioner’s request to toll the limitations period, believing him insufficiently diligent in discovering his rights.   The Fourth Circuit vacated the Board’s diligence determination, remanding to the BIA to consider the second prong of the equitable-tolling inquiry—whether the change in the law constituted an extraordinary circumstance—as well as the merits of Petitioner’s claim. The court explained that because the BIA determined Petitioner not diligent, it did not consider whether Johnson and Dimaya presented an extraordinary circumstance that would warrant equitable tolling. In previous cases, the BIA has held that Supreme Court decisions that significantly change the legal landscape meet this bar. Thus, the court remanded to the BIA to decide whether the legal changes in Johnson and Dimaya constitute extraordinary circumstances and whether, on the whole, Petitioner’s request to reconsider merits a favorable exercise of discretion. View "Damien Williams v. Merrick Garland" on Justia Law

Petitioner and her minor daughter, natives and citizens of Guatemala, petition for review of the final order of the Board of Immigration Appeals dismissing their appeal from the immigration judge’s order denying Petitioner’s application for asylum and withholding of removal. Petitioners filed their petition for review with this Court one day after the deadline set by 8 U.S.C. Section 1252(b)(1). They contend that the Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 26(c) extends the filing period by three additional days because the Board served the order by mail.   The Fourth Circuit dismissed the petition concluding that Rule 26(c) does not apply to petitions for review governed by Section 1252(b)(1). The court explained that because Section 1252(b)(1) calculates the time to file a petition for review from “the date of the final order of removal,” and not from service of that order, Rule 26(c) does not apply. View "Ana Santos-De Jimenez v. Merrick Garland" on Justia Law

Blenheim Capital Holdings Ltd. and Blenheim Capital Partners Ltd., Guernsey-based companies (collectively, “Blenheim”), commenced this action against Lockheed Martin Corporation, Airbus Defence and Space SAS, and the Republic of Korea and its Defense Acquisition Program Administration (the last two, collectively, “South Korea”), alleging that Defendants conspired to “cut it out” as the broker for a large, complex international military procurement transaction.   Blenheim alleged that the defendants (1) tortiously interfered with its brokerage arrangement and its prospective business expectations; (2) conspired to do so; (3) were unjustly enriched; and (4) conspired to violate federal and state antitrust laws. The district court granted Defendants’ motions to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). With respect to the tort claims, it concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction by reason of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act because South Korea was presumptively immune from jurisdiction under the Act and had not been engaged in “commercial activity,”   The Fourth Circuit affirmed. The court concluded that the offset transaction was not commercial activity as excepted from the immunity from jurisdiction conferred in the FSIA, accordingly the court affirmed the district court’s conclusion that it lacked jurisdiction over Blenheim’s tort claims. Further, because Blenheim felt adverse impacts immediately upon Lockheed’s October 2016 termination of the brokerage agreement, the date of the satellite launch is not relevant to the date when the cause of action accrued. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court’s ruling that Blenheim’s antitrust claims are barred by the applicable four-year statute of limitations. View "Blenheim Capital Holdings Ltd. v. Lockheed Martin Corporation" on Justia Law

Defendant filed a motion under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2255, challenging his conviction for using a destructive device in furtherance of a crime of violence. The district court denied his motion and Defendant appealed.The Fourth Circuit reversed, finding that the federal arson statute which served as the predicate for Defendant's Sec. 924(c) conviction is not categorically a crime of violence. Because the statute Defendant was convicted under criminalized the arson of property fully owned by the defendant, and not just that of the property “of another” as required by Sec. 924(c). View "US v. Cecil Davis" on Justia Law