Frank Albert Kaufman

In Campbell v. Masten, a former employee sued her employer Wildlife International and a colleague for sex discrimination, quid pro quo sexual harassment, and hostile work environment under Title VII, along with related state-law claims including wrongful discharge. The court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the federal claims, holding that the plaintiff failed to allege facts showing disparate treatment on the basis of gender or conduct of a sexual nature, as the relationship was consensual and post-breakup criticism was not tied to protected characteristics. The court declined supplemental jurisdiction over the state claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3) and granted the plaintiff's motion for voluntary dismissal without prejudice, noting no discovery had occurred.

civil rightslabor & employmentprocedure

This case involved Lori Rhoads suing the FDIC as receiver for her former employers, Standard Federal Savings Bank and its successor, after her 1993 termination for excessive absences stemming from asthma and migraines triggered by workplace cigarette smoke. Rhoads brought claims under the ADA for failure to accommodate and retaliation, under the FMLA for interference with protected leave, and under various state laws including Montgomery County human rights provisions, a duty to provide a safe workplace, and wage payment statutes. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the court granted the defendants' motion in part and denied it in part while denying Rhoads's cross-motion entirely. The decision turned on the existence of genuine disputes of material fact regarding Rhoads's disability status, the reasonableness of requested accommodations like remote work, her eligibility and notice under the FMLA, and related state-law elements, precluding judgment as a matter of law on multiple counts.

labor & employmentcivil rights

The case involved a Mexican bank and its Cayman subsidiary suing their U.S. securities brokers for over $23 million in losses on investments in complex collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs), specifically inverse floaters and inverse IOs, alleging violations of federal securities laws under Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5, the Maryland Securities Act, and state common law claims including breach of fiduciary duty, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, and fraud, plus a control-person claim under Section 20(a). The defendants moved for summary judgment after the bank had communicated its conservative investment criteria and received disclosures about the securities. The court granted the motion, applying relevant federal and state law standards to the undisputed facts regarding the nature of the derivatives, the parties' interactions, and the disclosures made.

business & regulatoryproceduretorts & liability

The case concerns two insurance companies that issued accidental death policies under an ERISA-governed employee benefit plan and sought a declaratory judgment that they owed no benefits for the death of Milton Hawkins, who was killed when his wife set fire to the bed where he was sleeping. The insurers argued that the death was not accidental because it resulted from a pattern of domestic violence that should have led Mr. Hawkins to reasonably expect such an outcome, while the estate maintained that the policies covered the loss. The court denied both the insurers' motion for summary judgment and the estate's cross-motion, holding that genuine issues of material fact existed regarding the history of abuse, whether Mr. Hawkins knew or should have known his wife might kill him, and the applicability of concepts like battered spouse syndrome to the reasonable-expectation test under the policy language. The policies defined covered losses as those resulting directly from bodily injury due to an accident independent of all other causes, and the ERISA context required close adherence to those written terms. The case was therefore set for further proceedings to resolve the factual disputes.

federal powerbusiness & regulatorycriminal law

In this employment discrimination case, plaintiff Angelo Bodoy, a Puerto Rican Latino maintenance mechanic, sued North Arundel Hospital and several supervisors under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981, alleging unequal discipline and working conditions, harassment, denial of advancement opportunities, retaliation, and retaliatory discharge based on race and national origin. After the EEOC case was dismissed and a co-plaintiff withdrew, the defendants moved for summary judgment, which Bodoy opposed while proceeding pro se. The court granted the motion, holding that Bodoy failed to establish a prima facie case of discrimination or retaliation and that the hospital's documented criticisms of his performance—such as slow completion of rounds, inadequate skills in electrical and plumbing work, and failure to pursue training—provided legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons for the discipline and termination that Bodoy did not rebut with evidence of pretext. The court noted that performance reviews and warnings were consistent and that Bodoy lacked the specialized skills of other mechanics, with no sufficient link shown between his complaints and adverse actions.

civil rightslabor & employment

In Cross v. Bally's Health & Tennis Corp., the plaintiff, an African-American former employee of Bally’s, alleged racial discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 by claiming he was treated differently than non-African-American employees in the enforcement of the company’s lateness policy, along with related retaliation claims under Title VII, the FLSA, and Maryland wage laws. The court granted Bally’s motion for summary judgment. The court reasoned that the plaintiff did not present direct evidence of discriminatory animus and failed to make out a prima facie case of disparate treatment under the McDonnell Douglas framework because his time-card analysis did not identify employee races, account for varying schedules, or demonstrate that similarly situated non-African-American employees received more lenient discipline.

civil rightslabor & employment

The case involved a former employee suing his employer and individual officers for unpaid benefits including accrued leave, an automobile allowance, attorney's fees, severance pay, and health benefits, bringing one claim under ERISA and three state-law claims for breach of contract, promissory estoppel, and violations of Maryland's Wage Payment and Collection Law. The court granted summary judgment to the defendants on the ERISA count, holding that the benefits at issue were payroll practices paid from general assets and thus did not qualify as an ERISA employee welfare benefit plan under the statute, Department of Labor regulations, and Supreme Court precedent in Massachusetts v. Morash. After dismissing the sole federal claim, the court declined supplemental jurisdiction over the state claims under 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3) and dismissed them without prejudice, noting the tolling provision that would allow refiling in state court.

labor & employmentprocedure

The case involved a white former minister, John Shirkey, who alleged he was barred from applying for a community developer position at Eastwind Community Development Corp. because the National Division of the United Methodist Church required the role to be filled by an African American as a condition of funding under its Black Community Developer’s Program; the Conference had approved the application and Eastwind implemented the criteria. Shirkey sued National, the Conference, and Eastwind under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 for racial discrimination in the making of contracts. The court granted the Conference’s motion for summary judgment, finding insufficient evidence of its direct involvement in the discriminatory criteria, but granted Shirkey’s cross-motion for summary judgment on liability against National, concluding that National’s explicit racial restriction violated § 1981 and that the position did not qualify for any ministerial exception. The core reasoning focused on the evidence of National’s policy documents and funding conditions that mandated an African-American hire, combined with the administrative rather than religious-leadership nature of the community developer role.

civil rightsreligious liberty

The case concerned Stash, Inc. seeking a declaratory judgment that its protective athletic gloves did not infringe Palmgard International, Inc.'s Webster patent on an inner baseball glove and that certain Webster claims were invalid, along with Palmgard's counterclaim for infringement against Stash and its officer Stanley, who held an earlier Stanley patent on similar gloves. The court granted summary judgment to Stash and Stanley on non-infringement, denied Palmgard's cross-motion on that issue, and denied the parties' motions on invalidity. The ruling turned on claim construction showing that the accused Stash gloves' padding did not cover every limitation of the Webster claims literally or by equivalence, as the Webster patent specified padding only in maximum stress areas while leaving finger tips and creases unencumbered, and treated the prior-issued Stanley patent as relevant prior art. Jurisdiction was based on federal patent questions under 28 U.S.C. § 1331 and the Declaratory Judgment Act.

business & regulatoryprocedure

In Lema v. Citibank (South Dakota), N.A., a consumer sued the bank under the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) for allegedly providing inaccurate derogatory information about his account to credit reporting agencies, and also brought a related state law negligence claim. The court granted summary judgment to the defendants on the FCRA claim, finding that the bank was neither a consumer reporting agency nor a user of consumer reports as defined by the statute, since it only reported information from its own transactions with the plaintiff. The court dismissed the negligence claim without prejudice after declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claim once the federal claim was resolved.

business & regulatorytorts & liability

In this case, plaintiff Pobel sued various defendants including HCYT and Chandler over a contract to purchase and construct a yacht, alleging that the defendants induced payments over nearly two years without intending to complete the work; the amended complaint added a civil RICO claim based on seventeen fax transmissions and similar schemes against others. After the court expressed doubt about the RICO claim's viability, the plaintiff dropped it along with those defendants, and the underlying dispute was settled. The court denied the defendants' motion for Rule 11 sanctions against the plaintiff for filing the RICO claim, reasoning that sanctions require a showing that the claim had absolutely no chance of success under existing precedent, whereas here the plaintiff could make a nonfrivolous argument that the alleged conduct satisfied RICO's "pattern" requirement through closed-ended continuity based on the duration and facts, drawing on case law from other circuits despite the Fourth Circuit's stricter approach.

procedurecriminal law

The case involved nineteen current and former instructors at the Baltimore location of New England Tractor Trailer Training School who sued under the Fair Labor Standards Act to recover unpaid overtime wages. The defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that the instructors' claims were exempt from FLSA coverage under 29 U.S.C. §§ 213(a)(1) (professional exemption) and 213(b)(1) (motor carrier exemption). The court granted summary judgment to the defendant. It reasoned that the instructors qualified as exempt professionals because their work required specialized knowledge, practical experience, and compliance with state and federal licensing standards for teaching commercial driving skills, making further analysis of the motor carrier exemption unnecessary.

labor & employmentprocedure

In Jones v. Dacosta, an individual plaintiff and a Maryland corporation sued several out-of-state defendants alleging breach of contract or fraud and seeking over $75,000 in damages. The court first dismissed the corporate plaintiff's claims because a corporation may not proceed pro se under local rules. Defendant Binder then moved to dismiss the remaining individual plaintiff's claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, noting that his alleged damages totaled only about $22,000. The court granted the motion, holding that the individual plaintiff's claims fell below the $50,000 diversity threshold under 28 U.S.C. § 1332 and that supplemental jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1367 was unavailable once the corporate claims had been dismissed.

procedure

The case involved plaintiff Korotki suing defendants (a law firm, lawyer, and process server) for allegedly violating the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA), Maryland's Consumer Credit Reporting Agencies Act, and committing invasion of privacy by obtaining his credit report solely to locate an address for serving legal papers related to a mechanic's lien and debt collection dispute arising from a construction contract. The court granted summary judgment to the defendants on all claims. It reasoned that Korotki qualified as a consumer under the FCRA, but defendants had a permissible purpose under 15 U.S.C. § 1681b(3)(E) to obtain the report due to a legitimate business need tied to a transaction involving the consumer, namely enforcing a potential lien or collecting a disputed debt, and there was no evidence of bad faith or improper use of the report's non-address information.

business & regulatorytorts & liabilityprocedure

In Chenowith v. Asplundh Tree Expert Co., the plaintiff, a journeyman employee terminated after refusing to climb a tree, sued his employer under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, alleging age-based discrimination. The employment was governed by a collective bargaining agreement that established a grievance procedure culminating in arbitration, with the union holding binding authority over whether to pursue arbitration; the union declined to do so after the grievance was denied. The defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing both that the CBA and union decision barred the federal suit and that the claim failed on the merits. Following Fourth Circuit precedent in Austin v. Owens-Brockway Glass Container, Inc., which held that mandatory arbitration provisions in CBAs preclude federal court relief on statutory discrimination claims, the court granted summary judgment to the defendant on the ground that the employee was bound by the union's decision not to arbitrate.

labor & employmentcivil rights

This case involves a dispute over an insurance claim for fire damage to a hotel in Maryland, where plaintiff Schaefer sued Aetna for breach of implied covenant of good faith, breach of contract, and negligence, seeking compensatory and punitive damages. The court examined whether it had diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, requiring at least $50,000 in controversy. Because the plaintiff could not recover punitive damages as a matter of Maryland law for the bad faith claim, the total damages sought fell below the jurisdictional threshold to a legal certainty. The court therefore granted partial summary judgment on the punitive damages claim and dismissed the remaining claims without prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

procedurebusiness & regulatorytorts & liability

The case involved a chain-reaction rear-end automobile accident in Washington, D.C., in which plaintiff Nugent's stopped vehicle was struck from behind by Curry's vehicle after Morehead's vehicle collided with Curry's. Nugent sued Morehead for negligence, her employer Southwestern Bell on a vicarious liability theory, and Curry, but dismissed the claims against Curry and moved for partial summary judgment on liability against Morehead and Southwestern Bell. The court granted the motion under District of Columbia law, holding that the undisputed facts established Morehead's negligence and causation as a matter of law because she struck the vehicle ahead in stop-and-go traffic with no evidence of contributory negligence by Nugent or any other party. The ruling rested on the absence of any genuine factual dispute that would allow a reasonable factfinder to conclude otherwise.

torts & liabilityprocedure

In Zumas v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corp., plaintiffs filed a product liability suit in Maryland state court in November 1994 against multiple defendants, including Owens-Corning; after over a year of pretrial proceedings and a multi-week trial, plaintiffs settled with the last non-diverse defendant on November 7, 1995, prompting the remaining diverse defendant to file a notice of removal the next day. Plaintiffs moved to remand, arguing that removal was untimely. The court granted the motion to remand, holding that under Maryland law the action commenced upon filing in November 1994, more than one year earlier, and that 28 U.S.C. § 1446(b) bars diversity-based removal after that one-year limit. The court emphasized Congress’s intent, reflected in the statute’s legislative history, to prevent removal after substantial state-court progress that would cause delay and disruption.

procedure

Plaintiff Jacklyn Kay Heineman sued the personal representatives of her late husband’s estate and the plan trustee, seeking a declaratory judgment clarifying her rights to benefits under an employee pension plan and alleging breach of fiduciary duties under ERISA. The defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that the plan was not covered by ERISA and that the federal court therefore lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The court found that the Heineman Company had only one employee—the sole shareholder—both at the time the plan was adopted and throughout its existence, as shown by tax filings, census forms, and affidavits; under ERISA regulations, a plan covering only the owner does not qualify as an employee benefit plan. Because no federal question existed, the court dismissed the action without prejudice for lack of jurisdiction.

labor & employmentbusiness & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved Anne Arundel County suing United Pacific Insurance Company and other defendants in Maryland state court. UPIC petitioned to remove the case to federal district court under diversity jurisdiction, prompting the County to move for remand on grounds that not all defendants had joined the removal and that the petition was untimely. The court granted the motion to remand to state court, holding that 28 U.S.C. § 1446 requires every defendant to file written consent to removal within thirty days of service and that GPI's failure to do so (along with the petition being filed on the thirty-first day) rendered the removal defective. The decision rested on established case law interpreting the statute's joinder and timeliness requirements, without addressing the underlying merits or diversity issues.

procedure