In sentencing defendant for knowingly failing to register in Virginia as a sex offender, the district court did not err in sentencing him as a Tier  offender under USSG § 2A.3(a)(1), based on a Georgia rape conviction that was comparable ...

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

An owners’ association that did not opt out of multidistrict litigation in the District of South Carolina against a manufacturer of allegedly defective windows was properly enjoined from pursuing its separate suit in the wake of settlement of the multidistrict ...

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

At defendant’s trial on charges arising from his participation in an illegal operation fencing over-the-counter medications and health and beauty products stolen by drug addicts and resold through a warehouse operation, the 4th Circuit upholds the trial court’s decision to ...

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

In a dispute over denial of homeowners’ claim under a National Flood Insurance Program for damage by Hurricane Irene to the foundation of their waterfront home, the 4th Circuit reverses the district court’s award of $700,194 in treble damages and ...

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

A defendant convicted of possessing a stolen firearm knowing it was stolen loses his challenge to his 70-month sentence based on his claim that Johnson v. U.S.’s invalidation of the residual clause in the Armed Career Criminal Act meant the ...

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

The State of North Carolina loses its appeal of a decision that it does not own a 45-mile segment of the riverbed of the Yadkin River that, over the past 100 years, has been developed by Alcoa Power Generating Inc., ...

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

A plaintiff who sued for fraud alleging he discovered after purchasing two franchise restaurants that the sellers had provided inflated monthly sales figures that included an owner allegedly ringing up phony sales can take his case to a jury; the ...

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

Plaintiffs, who own property over portions of the Beatrice Mine in Buchanan County, Virginia, cannot rely on the CERCLA discovery rule to file their 2011 and 2013 lawsuits challenging another coal company’s activity draining water into the Beatrice Mine from ...

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

A man serving nearly 25 years in prison hoped that cryptic comments a juror made to his father before his 2005 trial would show that the juror was biased and that his attorney was deficient. Marvin Powell, convicted of federal ...

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

A defendant convicted on federal drug and firearms charges is not entitled to habeas relief on a claim that his counsel was constitutionally ineffective when she failed to tell the trial court that, before trial began, a juror approached defendant’s ...

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