Despite his supervisor’s racially-tinged comments, a VDOT employee’s termination was not plausibly connected to racial or religious discrimination but was instead the result of unsatisfactory performance. Background Appellant Sinan Rayyan is a Muslim Arab-American who worked as a professional engineer ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Civil Rights Employment Employment Discrimination Per Curiam Opinion

In its first published order of the year, Virginia’s high court reversed an order granting bail to a defendant indicted for first-degree murder. Appellee Bernard Clark Duse Jr. is charged with first-degree murder of his work supervisor and use of ...

Tagged with: Criminal Per Curiam Opinion Supreme Court of Virginia

Appellant Samuel Biers appeals the district court’s entry of judgment as a matter of law in favor of Appellee Tracey Cline during a jury trial on Biers’s First Amendment retaliation claim. Biers claimed that, in 2011, Cline – then the ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Constitutional Per Curiam Opinion Unpublished Opinion

The court of appeals upheld a decision to terminate the parental rights of Appellants Bettina and Daniel Dorr as to their autistic young son. The Dorrs are biological parents to D., born in 2012. Responding to a complaint in 2013, ...

Tagged with: Family Law Parental Rights Per Curiam Opinion Virginia Court of Appeals

A reasonable jury could find that Defendant/Appellee Fairfax County did not adequately address a firefighter’s complaints of harassment and that it retaliated against her after she complained, the court of appeals held; thus, summary judgment for the County was improper. ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Employment Discrimination Judge Anthony J. Trenga Per Curiam Opinion Unpublished Opinion

In awarding attorneys’ fees, the district court failed to exclude time spent for plaintiffs whose claims were time-barred; it also incorrectly determined the percentage of sought damages actually won. Plaintiff Gregory Randolph brought suit against his former employer, Defendant PowerComm ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Employment Per Curiam Opinion Unpublished Opinion

Castillo v. Bell (VLW No. 017-7-273, 4pp.) Record No. 0859-17-3. (Per Curiam, unpublished) Appealed from the Circuit Court of Rockbridge County (Filson, J.) Holding: Where the appellant-biological mother endorsed a final adoption order as “Seen and objected to” without further ...

Tagged with: Domestic Relations Per Curiam Opinion Virginia Court of Appeals

A grand jury investigating defendant’s provision of a fraudulent document may not ask a criminal defense team “what did the witness tell you,” as the government did not show that the crime-fraud exception allowed it to obtain this protected attorney ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Criminal Per Curiam Opinion

The Court of Appeals upholds termination of a father’s rights to one of his 12 children, based on the father’s history of substance abuse, domestic violence and failure to remedy conditions that led to termination of his parental rights to ...

Tagged with: Domestic Relations Per Curiam Opinion Unpublished Opinion Virginia Court of Appeals

The Court of Appeals affirms termination of a mother’s parental rights to one of her children, based on the mother’s history of substance abuse and childhood trauma. The older child had to be placed in a therapeutic foster home, and ...

Tagged with: Domestic Relations Per Curiam Opinion Virginia Court of Appeals