When a judge begins by describing a plaintiff’s story as one of “a certain grit and perseverance,” a favorable ruling is usually only a few pages away. That was the case for Deborah Merritt, a driver for Old Dominion Freight ...

Tagged with: Employment Discrimination Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III

Saying a jury could find that gender discrimination “was afoot,” the 4th Circuit reverses a district court’s summary judgment for a trucking company sued under Title VII by a female truck driver who claims the company discriminated against her by ...

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

The 4th Circuit rejects defendant’s claim that it is sanctioning detention of anyone touching hands with someone else in a high-crime area, and upholds admission of evidence and defendant’s drug and gun convictions; the experience of a police officer, who ...

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

A district court’s comment that it was “obligated” to give a defendant a guidelines sentence unless there was a reason for departure smacks of an “impermissible presumption,” the 4th Circuit says, and it remands for resentencing. Appellant Dario Mendoza-Mendoza, a ...

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

A Liberian citizen who claims he was forced to serve as a child soldier in the early 1990s has his petition for appeal of a denial of his request for withholding of removal dismissed by the 4th Circuit. Richard Kporlor ...

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

The 4th Circuit says the Board of Immigration Appeals may determine on a case-by-case basis that a non-aggravated felony is a “particularly serious crime” for purposes of asylum, and the court rejects a Chinese citizen’s application for withholding of removal ...

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

A group of corporations suspected of financing terrorist activity that refused to turn over documents pursuant to a grand jury subpoena has findings of civil contempt upheld by the 4th Circuit. The twelve interrelated corporations in this case refused to ...

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

Where plaintiff cancer patients won their earlier class action suit demanding defendant insurance carriers pay as “actual charges” of treatment the full amount billed, not the amount received, by medical providers, defendant insurance carriers cannot take advantage of a new ...

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

A defendant convicted of a firearm offense in connection with his spraying 22 rounds from an AK-47 into a nightclub parking lot after a confrontation with rival gang members can have his sentence enhanced under the Armed Career Criminal Act, ...

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

A party’s repudiation of a contract that prompted the other party to sue and request specific performance does not preclude the non-repudiating party from claiming monetary damages under West Virginia law, and the 4th Circuit reverses a district court’s decision ...

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