North Carolina Lawyers Weekly

An employer can enforce an arbitration clause in an employment contract that waives any appellate review, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in a matter of first impression.  The April 8 decision allows employers to put clear ...

Tagged with: Contract

Judge Barbara Milano Keenan of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has announced that she will assume senior status on Aug. 31, creating a bench vacancy to be filled by President Joe Biden. Keenan’s plan to take senior status ...

Comedian and actor Kevin Hart will avoid liability in a suit brought by former business partners who claimed that their video game launch was torpedoed by Hart’s admission of an extramarital affair, following a decision from the 4th U.S. Circuit ...

Tagged with: Kevin Hart

A federal appeals court has denied qualified immunity for a police officer who shot and killed a citizen’s dog when the dog allegedly posed no threat. The Jan. 22 decision by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revives a ...

Tagged with: 4th Circuit

A divided federal appeals panel has overturned the convictions of three people accused of distributing synthetic drugs because the jury was never asked if the charges were brought in the right locality. A two-judge majority of a panel of the ...

Tagged with: venue

  A Virginia judge has blocked a lawsuit filed by the CEO of a now-defunct and discredited lab company that accused a big national law firm—which had announced only a day earlier that it would begin winding down its own ...

Tagged with: malpractice

  A federal appeals court has underscored its insistence that attorneys’ fee awards take into account just how far short of the target a plaintiff’s arrow falls. Judges must compare the amount of damages sought to the amount awarded, the ...

Tagged with: Fees

By Peter Vieth A woman’s failure to read the label on a bottle of pills was not contributory negligence as a matter of law, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals court said in the case of a pharmacy that ...

Tagged with: pills

Three days after a gunman shot and killed 12 people at the sprawling Virginia Beach, Virginia government complex, lawyers were back in court nearby on June 3 arguing to a jury over the value of a personal injury claim. The ...

Allowing a young visitor to Colonial Williamsburg to eat his homemade meal with classmates in a historic tavern might be a necessary accommodation to his special dietary needs, a panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last ...