The Sierra Club sued Dominion Energy under the citizen-suit provision of the Clean Water Act.  Following a bench trial, the district court found that rainwater and groundwater were leaching arsenic from the coal ash in the landfill and settling ponds, ...

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

A district court did not err in denying preliminary injunctive relief to preserve the National Labor Relations Board’s ability to award relief following its adjudication of unfair labor practice charges against two hospitals. Because the Board did not show irreparable ...

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

When a defendant directed officers searching his home to a gun under the couch, he was responding to their question to his wife, not to him. Therefore, no grounds existed to suppress his voluntary statements about the gun. No other ...

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

A district court did not err in denying preliminary injunctive relief to preserve the National Labor Relations Board’s ability to award relief following its adjudication of unfair labor practice charges against two hospitals. Because the Board did not show irreparable ...

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

When a defendant directed officers searching his home to a gun under the couch, he was responding to their question to his wife, not to him. Therefore, no grounds existed to suppress his voluntary statements about the gun. No other ...

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

Although some claims analysts were on a different Hartford subsidiary’s payroll, they nevertheless processed the plaintiff’s disability claim on behalf of the entity designated as plan administrator. Accordingly, under ERISA, the administrator’s decision to terminate benefits was subject only to ...

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

At a revocation hearing, a district court asked to reconsider imposing the maximum sentence based on hardship to the defendant’s family did in fact consider that mitigating factor, as shown by the court’s response of “all right” and a subsequent ...

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

The district court did not err in convicting and sentencing two U.S. citizens who engaged in online fundraising activities for a foreign terrorist organization. The evidence supporting the convictions – obtained through ex parte, in camera FISA review – was ...

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

The federal Copyright Remedy Clarification Act’s broad abrogation of states’ sovereign immunity for copyright infringement was not a valid exercise of Congressional authority, either under Article I’s Copyright Clause or § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Background In 1717, the ...

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

BY HEATH HAMACHER BridgeTower Media Newswires One of the men responsible for the Beltway sniper attacks of 2002 that left 10 dead and three injured has won an appeal to have four life sentences reconsidered by the Virginia courts that ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Albert Diaz Judge Paul V. Niemeyer Judge Robert B. King