Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff alleged that she was subjected to multiple instances of racial harassment and other discrimination during two periods of employment with the defendant Oakland Living Center, Inc. (“OLC”). According to Plaintiff, she was compelled to resign for good in the summer of 2018 after repeatedly being called racial slurs by the six-year-old son of an OLC supervisor and others (collectively “Defendants”).   Plaintiff contests the district court’s award of summary judgment to OLC on her hostile work environment and constructive discharge claims under both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 42 U.S.C. Section 1981. The Fourth Circuit vacated the judgment and remanded for further proceedings on the claims against OLC.   The court explained that in considering all of the circumstances, the fact that the three n-word incidents were perpetrated by a six-year-old boy does not preclude a finding that those incidents are sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter Plaintiff’s conditions of employment and create an abusive work environment. Accordingly, the court rejected OLC’s contention that it is entitled to summary judgment for lack of an adequate showing on the third element of Plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim.   Further, here, the record indicates that OLC failed to provide reasonable procedures for complaints of workplace harassment. OLC has produced no evidence that it had any harassment reporting policy in July and August 2018, when the three n-word incidents occurred. In these circumstances, a reasonable jury could charge OLC with constructive knowledge of all three n-word incidents. View "Tonya Chapman v. Oakland Living Center, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a transgender woman with gender dysphoria, spent six months incarcerated in the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center. Though prison deputies initially assigned her to women’s housing, they quickly moved her to men’s housing when they learned that she was transgender. There, she experienced delays in medical treatment for her gender dysphoria, harassment by other inmates, and persistent and intentional misgendering and harassment by prison deputies. Following her release from the detention center, Plaintiff filed a Section 1983 action against the Sheriff of Fairfax County, a prison deputy, and a prison nurse alleging violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), the Rehabilitation Act, the United States Constitution, and state common law. The district court dismissed the case, holding that the complaint failed to state grounds for relief with respect to some claims and that the statute of limitations barred others.The Fourth Circuit reversed the remanded the district court’s ruling. The court held that Plaintiff has plausibly alleged that gender dysphoria does not fall within the ADA’s exclusion for “gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments.” In addition, the court held that Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint relates back to her Original Complaint and that she has stated claims of gross negligence against the Sheriff and Deputy. View "Kesha Williams v. Stacey Kincaid" on Justia Law

The United States Government seized $69,940.50 in cash from Plaintiff’s car. Plaintiff and his girlfriend challenged the seizure, claiming that the cash was not subject to forfeiture. To forfeit the seized cash, the Government bore the burden of establishing a connection between the cash and the illegal activity—in this case, illegal drug trafficking. The district court, in granting summary judgment, found that the facts painted a picture that definitively established that the cash was drug money.   The Fourth Circuit reversed finding that the record is unclear regarding whether a reasonable jury might well decide that the painting of these facts shows the cash came from drug trafficking. The court explained that summary judgment in a forfeiture proceeding is like summary judgment in any other civil case. Applying those standards correctly ensures that the Government must prove its case before depriving citizens of their private property based on an allegation of wrongdoing. Here, the Government has the burden of proof. The Government lacks any direct evidence of a drug transaction or involvement in the drug trade beyond Plaintiff’s possession of a single marijuana blunt and medical marijuana cards. The Government would have the court rely on its own inferences from its circumstantial evidence, which the court may not do. View "US v. Dereck McClellan" on Justia Law

Plaintiff s an inmate at United States Penitentiary (“USP”) Hazelton who filed a pro se civil action in United States district court alleging violations under the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”) for denied and delayed medical care of his chronic illnesses. Plaintiff also filed a Motion for Leave to Proceed in forma pauperis (“IFP”). Following the Magistrate Judge’s recommendation, the district court denied Plaintiff’s IFP motion on the grounds that he did not meet the “imminent danger of serious physical injury” exception.Plaintiff appealed and the Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment and remanded. The court explained that a plain reading of the statute requires that litigants allege sufficient specific facts to demonstrate a nexus between the claims presented and the imminent danger alleged. Here, both parties agree that it is a “commonsense requirement that a prisoner’s allegation of imminent danger must relate to their underlying claims.” Moreover, the Government concedes that “a fairly traceable relationship exists between Plaintiff’s alleged imminent danger and the claims set forth in his FTCA complaint, as they both arise from his allegations of delay and denial of medical treatment.” Plaintiff has passed this threshold because he alleged that the prison’s continued denial and delay in providing medical treatment are directly causing his worsening physical and medical conditions which present an imminent danger of serious physical injury.Finally, since the district court did not have access to Defendant’s medical records and, thus, did not have a complete record to determine whether Defendant satisfied the “imminent danger” exception based on the court's clarified standard, the court remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. View "Marc Hall v. US" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency alleging religious discrimination and retaliation under Title VII. The Fourth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal. The court explained that because the alleged discrimination and retaliation arose from Plaintiff’s failure to satisfy additional security requirements and would require the court to review the merits of the security-authorization decision, the court is bound by the decision in Department of the Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518 (1988), to affirm the district court’s dismissal of this matter for lack of jurisdiction.   The court explained that it agrees that courts must exercise caution in expanding the reach of Egan. Nevertheless, the court declined to adopt the hardline position, urged by Plaintiff, that Egan’s rationale may only ever apply to determinations explicitly labeled “security clearances.” Rather, as in Foote and Sanchez, this case requires a more detailed analysis of whether the judgment at issue is of the type that Egan intended to shield from judicial review. Furhter, the court held that the CIA’s decision to stop Plaintiff’s assignee-security authorization processing is the kind of discretionary predictive judgment shielded from judicial review by Egan. View "Nathan Mowery v. National Geospatial Intelligence Agency" on Justia Law

Plaintiff claims that Bridgestone Americas Tire Operations discriminated against her based on her race by allowing a hostile work environment to pervade its manufacturing plant and by retaliating against her for accusing a co-worker of tampering with her machine. Bridgestone moved for summary judgment, and the district court granted summary judgment in Bridgestone’s favor on all claims.   On appeal, Plaintiff argued that the district court wrongly concluded that her hostile-work-environment claim was not supported by evidence of race-based harassment that was severe or pervasive enough. She also argues that her retaliation claim was based on a reasonable belief that the tampering with her machine was due to her race and that her transfer to KBN2 was causally related to her complaints.   The Fourth Circuit affirmed, holding that Plaintiff presented no evidence that would allow a jury to conclude that any tampering that occurred in 2018 was based on her race. The court explained that the totality of Plaintiff’s these allegations, and the evidence put forward to support them, fails to create a genuine question of material fact that racial discrimination in Bridgestone’s MTS department was so severe or pervasive that it constituted a hostile work environment. View "Laverne McIver v. Bridgestone Americas, Inc." on Justia Law

On appeal, prisoner Plaintiff raised constitutional and state-law claims against numerous prison officials arising from a physical altercation at Red Onion State Prison in Virginia. As part of his evidentiary showing, Plaintiff repeatedly sought the production of videos recording the encounter. When he learned that some of the videos were not preserved, Plaintiff moved for spoliation sanctions.   After an evidentiary hearing, the magistrate judge denied Plaintiff’s spoliation motion and recommended entering judgment against him on all claims and counterclaims. The district court substantially adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendations without explicitly addressing Plaintiff’s objections to the order denying spoliation sanctions.The Fourth Circuit vacated the order of the district court entering judgment to Defendants and remand for a hearing on Plaintiff’s objections to the denial of spoliation sanctions, and for any other proceedings, the district court deems appropriate. The court held that the district court abused its discretion by implicitly overruling Plaintiff’s spoliation objections when several critical issues were left unresolved by the magistrate judge.   Specifically, the court explained that the magistrate judge erred in requiring Plaintiff to produce evidence that “the defendants purposefully disposed of any video recordings in an effort to prevent their use at trial.” Under Rule 37(e), when “electronically stored information that should have been preserved . . . is lost because a party failed to take reasonable steps to preserve it,” then “upon finding prejudice to another party from loss of the information,” the court “may order measures no greater than necessary to cure the prejudice.” Accordingly, only a finding of prejudice is required for such not-greater-than-necessary sanctions. View "Gary Wall v. E. Rasnick" on Justia Law

First Data Technologies, Inc. (“First Data”), a credit and debit card processing company, employed Plaintiff as a call center representative. Plaintiff submitted a request pursuant to the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) as a result of back pain she was experiencing from an automobile accident that occurred 15 days earlier. After a series of contested events, Plaintiff filed a charge of discrimination against First Data with the EEOC, alleging disability discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). Finding no evidence of an ADA violation, the EEOC issued a dismissal and notice of rights.   Plaintiff later filed a complaint in the district court and First Data moved to dismiss Cowgill’s FMLA retaliation claim as time-barred, as well as Plaintiff’s ADA retaliation claim because Plaintiff’s failed to exhaust her administrative remedies. Plaintiff appealed the district court’s dismissal of the ADA retaliation claim, as well as the grant of summary judgment as to the disability discrimination and failure-to-accommodate claims.   The Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s judgment because the court erred in holding that there are no genuine issues of material fact precluding summary judgment on the disability discrimination claim. The court explained that Plaintiff is entitled to the benefit of all inferences as the nonmovant, thus the court concluded that there is a genuine dispute as to whether Plaintiff met First Data’s legitimate expectations. Further, the court found that Plaintiff satisfied the final requirement of her disability discrimination claim because a reasonable factfinder could conclude that First Data’s proffered explanation served as pretext for an impermissible consideration. View "Terri Cowgill v. First Data Technologies, Inc." on Justia Law

A jury convicted Defendant of conspiring to transmit national defense information to Chinese agents, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 794(c), and making materially false statements to FBI agents, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Section 1001(a)(2). On appeal, Defendant challenges the district court’s application during trial of the “silent witness rule” — under which sensitive evidence is disclosed to the jury and the trial’s other participants but not to the public — contending that it violated his right to a public trial, in violation of the Sixth Amendment, and his right to present a complete defense, in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. He also mounted two distinct challenges to the district court’s instruction of the jury.   The Fourth Circuit rejected Defendant’s challenges and affirmed the district court’s ruling. The court wrote it does not suggest that the use of the silent witness rule could never implicate a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to a public trial, as reliance on the silent witness rule has the potential to interfere meaningfully with the public’s ability to understand what is happening in the proceedings, despite their physical presence in the courtroom. But it doubts that the limited use of the silent witness rule as it was applied in this case amounted to a sanctionable closure of the courtroom.   Further, in response to Defendant’s argument that the district court “watered down” the mens rea requirement for the conspiracy offense, the court found Defendant’s reasoning unpersuasive, as he focuses too narrowly on one small segment of the instructions without context. View "US v. Kevin Mallory" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was transferred from a class where she instructed emotionally disturbed (“ED”) children to a class where Plaintiff worked with children with moderate intellectual disabilities. Plaintiff alleged that one of her students sexually harassed her between fall 2018 through mid-March 2019. This student, S.M., was an eight-year-old boy diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (“ADHD”). Although the teacher in the classroom recorded the incidents in her notes, or “point sheets,” where she detailed each student’s daily behavior, Plaintiff claims the teacher was generally dismissive of her concerns. After exhausting her remedies with the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Plaintiff filed suit against the Chesterfield County School Board (“the School Board”) alleging that she was subjected to a sexually hostile work environment in violation of Title VII.   The district court granted the School Board’s motion for summary judgment. At issue on appeal is whether the district court erred in dismissing Plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim on summary judgment. The Fourth Circuit affirmed, finding that the record does not support a prima facie case for hostile work environment sexual harassment. The court explained that Plaintiff cannot primarily rely upon her own statements to argue that S.M.’s conduct surpassed what could be expected of an eight-year-old child with his disabilities after two special education experts testified that it did not—instead, she is required by law to demonstrate it. Further, even if Plaintiff established that S.M. targeted her because of sex, she would still be unable to meet the third required element—that is, show that S.M.’s conduct rose to the level of severe or pervasive. View "Regina Webster v. Chesterfield County School Board" on Justia Law