Where a mother sued school officials for failing to report that a teacher was abusing her son, the officials were granted immunity because their decisions involved the exercise of discretion and there were no allegations showing they acted with malice. ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III Negligence

Where the defendant could not be convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) for personally carrying a gun during a Hobbs Act conspiracy, his conviction for carrying a firearm during a crime of violence nevertheless stood because he was liable for ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III

Where South Carolina terminated its enrollment agreements with Planned Parenthood because it provided abortion services, a woman who used Planned Parenthood for her gynecological care had standing to sue to enjoin the termination on the grounds it violated Medicaid’s free-choice-of-provider ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Civil Practice Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III

Where unions sued a construction company for liquidated damages after it made a series of tardy payments to an employee health and welfare fund, the court joined three other circuits in holding that punitive damages are not recoverable in cases ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III Labor

Where a pharmaceutical company’s interpretation of a complex Medicaid statute was “objectively reasonable,” and there was no authoritative guidance from the government that clarified its interpretation of the statute, the relator failed to show the alleged false statements were “knowingly” ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Commercial Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III

Where a mortgage company argued that it was not a “debt collector” under the Maryland Consumer Debt Collection Act because it only accepted monthly payments and did not actively enforce the payment obligations of defaulting borrowers, its argument was rejected ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Consumer Protection Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III

Where an inmate claimed that prison officials violated the Eighth Amendment by failing to decontaminate him in a timely manner after his exposure to pepper spray, but there was only a short delay in decontamination with no aggravating factors such ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Civil Rights Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III

Where employees constructing a nuclear station alleged the owner violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act when it halted construction at the facility, the owner wasn’t liable because it wasn’t the plaintiffs’ employer. Background In 2017, SCANA, ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Employment Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III

Where the Virginia eluding statute’s mens rea required at least recklessness, and vehicular flight from law enforcement has been consistently found to involve sufficient risk and danger to be morally reprehensible, the statute qualified as a crime of moral turpitude. ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Civil Practice Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III

Where a defendant was only 15 years old when he participated in a series of violent carjackings, including one resulting in death, the district court’s imposition of a 52-year sentence was not unreasonable as it considered a variety of factors, ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III