The case involves numerous produce suppliers who sold goods on credit to Let-Us Produce but were not paid, seeking to enforce statutory trust rights under the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA) against the defendant's assets, with SunTrust Bank intervening as a secured creditor. Pursuant to a prior consent order setting up a claims procedure, the plaintiffs moved for interim distribution of funds from the company's operating account. The court granted the motion in part and denied it in part, while resolving key legal disputes over claim validity. The court's reasoning centered on PACA's statutory and regulatory requirements for preserving trust benefits, including the effects of payment term modifications and notice obligations, to determine which claims qualified for priority protection.
This case involves a plaintiff employee who was injured while working and who received benefits under both the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act and the federal Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act; he brought a tort suit against his employer in state court, which the defendant removed to federal court on diversity grounds. The defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that the exclusivity provision of the Virginia Act barred the plaintiff’s federal maritime tort claim arising under admiralty jurisdiction. After supplemental briefing on the benefits received and the application processes, the court denied the motion for summary judgment, holding that the claim was a federal maritime tort not precluded by state workers’ compensation exclusivity rules due to federal supremacy and the minimal state interest involved. The court certified the controlling legal question for interlocutory appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) because of substantial grounds for difference of opinion and stayed further proceedings.
This case involved a commercial lease dispute in which Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. sued its landlord, Norcor Bolingbrook Associates, LLC, for overcharges on common area maintenance expenses and related calculations. After the court granted Dollar Tree summary judgment and awarded compensatory damages, Dollar Tree filed a motion seeking attorney’s fees and prejudgment interest pursuant to the lease agreement. The court granted the motion in full, awarding $415,043.50 in attorney’s fees and $53,982.13 in prejudgment interest. It determined the fee request was reasonable under the lodestar method, supported by detailed affidavits on market rates and hours worked, and that prejudgment interest was appropriate given the nature of the overcharges. The decision followed established Fourth Circuit standards for evaluating fee awards and case law supporting interest on wrongfully withheld funds.
The case involved a motion to dismiss a 2009 indictment charging defendant Juan Adalverto Vega-Pena, a Salvadoran national, with reentry of a deported alien under 8 U.S.C. § 1326(a) after his 1989 deportation and 1992 illegal reentry. The court granted the motion, finding the five-year statute of limitations had expired. The core reasoning was that federal immigration officials had actual knowledge of the defendant's identity, presence, and illegal status by at least 2003 through his Temporary Protected Status applications and fingerprint records in his immigration file, making the offense a continuing one that was "found" more than five years before the March 2009 indictment.
In this case, defendant Esteban Venancio-Dominguez, who had pleaded guilty to reentry of a deported alien and aggravated identity theft under 18 U.S.C. § 1028A(a)(1), sought to vacate his identity theft conviction after the Supreme Court's decision in Flores-Figueroa v. United States, which held that the statute requires proof the defendant knew the identification belonged to another person. The court construed the defendant's pro se motion, originally filed under 18 U.S.C. § 3582, as a petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. Although the defendant had procedurally defaulted by not raising the issue on appeal, the court found he could proceed by showing actual innocence. Because the plea record contained no evidence of the required knowledge and the government conceded it could not prove that element under the new interpretation, the court held Flores-Figueroa applies retroactively and vacated the conviction for Count 3.
The case involved a former Regent University law student who was disciplined after posting an image of Chancellor Pat Robertson appearing to make an obscene gesture on Facebook and the school's internal email list, which administrators viewed as violating conduct rules against profane behavior. The student sued Robertson and the university on claims including free speech and religious liberty violations, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and promissory estoppel. The court denied the plaintiff's requests for more time or to file extra briefs, struck his untimely opposition, and granted summary judgment to the defendants, dismissing the case with prejudice. It reasoned that the defendants' facts were unopposed and that the claims lacked evidentiary support or were not valid causes of action under Virginia or Texas law.