Virginia Lawyers Weekly VA Lawyers Weekly

Although an employee was injured on a bridge spanning navigable waters, the location of the injury was insufficient to trigger coverage under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, or LHWCA. Background Kenneth Muhammad, a railroad employee, was injured while ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Paul V. Niemeyer Tort

The district court did not err in sentencing the defendant to a longer term because of three prior convictions for criminal domestic violence, because those convictions categorically qualified as a “violent felony” under the Armed Career Criminal Act, or ACCA. ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge William B. Traxler Jr.

Where a plaintiff provided a defendant of a draft of its motion for sanctions under Rule 11 only nine days before the case was stayed, and the stay was not lifted before the case was dismissed, the plaintiff’s motion for ...

Tagged with: Civil Practice Judge Anthony J. Trenga U.S. District Court - Eastern District

Where a three-member American Arbitration Association panel awarded the petitioner more than $10 million based on the respondent’s default of a subcontract between the parties, and the respondent failed to answer or respond to the properly served and timely petition ...

Tagged with: Arbitration Judge Anthony J. Trenga U.S. District Court - Eastern District

Animal rights groups were not entitled to an injunction compelling the Fish and Wildlife Service to release proactively documents related to trophy imports of African elephants and lions under the Freedom of Information Act because the act only applies to ...

Tagged with: Administrative Judge Liam O'Grady U.S. District Court - Eastern District

A mother who was arrested for disorderly conduct at her daughter’s school after she criticized a police officer when she observed the officer refusing to allow another mother to escort her child down the hallway could pursue her claims of ...

Tagged with: Civil Rights Judge M. Hannah Lauck U.S. District Court - Eastern District

A subcontractor that provided equipment, and received over $2.1 million in exchange, lost its attempt to keep those funds after the court agreed the money was paid as an avoidable transfer. Background Clark Construction Group LLC subcontracted work on a ...

Tagged with: Bankruptcy Judge Leonie Brinkema U.S. District Court - Eastern District

In a lawsuit challenging policies governing servicemembers living with the human immunodeficiency virus, the court held the plaintiffs were entitled to the vast majority of documents withheld by the government on the basis of a “deliberative process” privilege because, among ...

Tagged with: Evidence Judge Leonie Brinkema U.S. District Court - Eastern District

An individual’s post-trial attack on his conviction for conspiring to distribute cocaine failed when the court held the government satisfied its discovery obligations. Background In October 2015, Arnulfo Fagot-Maximo and five co-conspirators were charged in a single count indictment with ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge Liam O'Grady U.S. District Court - Eastern District

The U.S. could not be sued for the unlawful detention and removal of an El Salvadoran native who obtained derivative U.S. citizenship when his father became a naturalized citizen in 1995 because the decisions by immigration officials to investigate, detain ...

Tagged with: Criminal Judge T.S. Ellis III U.S. District Court - Eastern District