Rebecca Beach Smith

This case involves a patent infringement dispute between Pfizer and Teva over Teva's proposed generic version of Viagra, which allegedly infringed Pfizer's U.S. Patent No. 6,469,012 for treating erectile dysfunction. After the court previously ruled that the patent was valid and infringed, Pfizer moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) to amend the judgment to specify that the effective approval date for Teva's Abbreviated New Drug Application could not be earlier than the patent's expiration, as required by 35 U.S.C. § 271(e)(4)(A). Teva opposed this and proposed alternative language tying the approval date to a potential Federal Circuit decision invalidating certain patent claims. The court granted Pfizer's motion and denied Teva's request, holding that the statute mandates setting the effective date no earlier than the patent expiration upon a finding of infringement and that Teva's proposed modifications were not supported by the statutory language or necessary to prevent injustice.

business & regulatoryhealthcareprocedure

This case involved a Virginia state court action by a hotel condominium association against an insurance underwriter at Lloyd's for declaratory judgment and breach of contract arising from an insurance policy. After the state court dismissed non-diverse parties, creating complete diversity, the defendant filed a counterclaim in state court and then removed the case to federal court under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1332 and 1441. The plaintiff moved to remand, arguing that the defendant's filing of the counterclaim waived its right to remove. The court granted remand, holding that under Fourth Circuit precedent the voluntary counterclaim demonstrated a clear intent to submit to state court jurisdiction and thus waived removal, even though removal was otherwise timely and jurisdictionally proper. The court denied both parties' requests for costs and attorneys' fees, finding the removal issue not objectively unreasonable given the lack of controlling circuit precedent directly on point.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

This case concerns the salvage rights of R.M.S. Titanic, Inc. (RMST) to artifacts recovered from the wreck of the R.M.S. Titanic during expeditions in 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, and 2004. In a prior ruling, the court awarded RMST a 100% salvage award equal to the fair market value of the artifacts but reserved the method of payment and the possibility of a judicial sale. After a year passed with no buyer expressing interest in purchasing the collection at fair market value while preserving it for the public, the court found that monetary proceeds would be inadequate to satisfy the award. Accordingly, the court granted RMST title to the artifacts, subject to covenants and conditions negotiated with the United States.

property

Pfizer sued Teva for imminent infringement of its '012 patent, which claims methods of orally administering certain compounds including sildenafil to treat erectile dysfunction. Teva stipulated to infringement at trial but asserted counterclaims that the patent claims were invalid due to inequitable conduct during prosecution before the PTO, including alleged failures to disclose foreign litigation materials. The court applied the Therasense standards for materiality and specific intent to deceive, examined the actions of Pfizer's patent counsel in sorting and submitting references, and determined that the evidence did not establish the required intent or egregious misconduct. Accordingly, the court rejected the inequitable conduct defense and upheld the validity of the disputed claims.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case involves a patent infringement suit brought by Fox Group against Cree concerning two patents ('130 and '026) related to methods for growing low-defect silicon carbide crystals used in semiconductors. Fox alleged that Cree's products infringed claims of both patents and sought damages and an injunction. The court had previously entered judgment of non-infringement for Cree on the '026 patent, rendering that portion of Cree's summary judgment motion moot. On the remaining issues for the '130 patent, the court granted Cree's motion for summary judgment after construing the claims and determining that the asserted claims were anticipated and rendered invalid by Cree's own prior public disclosures in a 1996 paper, which described the same low defect densities without requiring additional proof of commercialization.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case involves Dragas Management Corp. seeking coverage from Citizens Insurance and Hanover Insurance for remediation costs after Chinese drywall installed by a subcontractor emitted sulfur gases that corroded metal components and caused other property damage in seventy-four homes. DMC had obtained an arbitration award against the subcontractor and sought to recover from the insurers' commercial general liability and umbrella policies. The court granted the insurers' motion for partial summary judgment on the policies containing absolute pollution exclusions. The core reasoning was that the policy language excluded coverage for property damage arising from the discharge or release of pollutants, and the sulfur gases qualified as pollutants under the defined terms, applying Virginia contract interpretation rules.

business & regulatorypropertytorts & liability

This case concerns tort claims brought by plaintiff Richard Galustian against defendant Lawrence Peter and, after substitution, the United States, stemming from alleged actions by a U.S. official in Iraq related to a private security association. The court denied the plaintiff's motion to review the government's certification of the official's scope of employment as moot, because the Fourth Circuit had already ordered substitution of the United States. The court granted the United States' motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, holding that Galustian had not filed a required administrative claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act before suing and that the claims fell within the Act's foreign-country exception to the waiver of sovereign immunity. The court also granted Peter's motion and dismissed the remaining claims against him on forum non conveniens grounds, finding Iraq an available alternative forum.

proceduretorts & liabilityfederal power

This case involves Dragas Management Corporation (DMC), a homebuilder, seeking to collect on a $4.9 million arbitration judgment against its subcontractor Porter-Blaine for costs DMC incurred remediating defective Chinese drywall installed in 74 homes. The drywall caused property damage including corrosion of HVAC systems and wiring, and DMC sued the subcontractor's insurers, Citizens and Hanover, under their commercial general liability and umbrella policies after Porter-Blaine refused to remediate. On DMC's motion for partial summary judgment, the court granted the motion in part and denied it in part, holding that the policies' requirement of an "occurrence" (defined as an accident) was not met for the costs of replacing the defective drywall itself, as its installation and resulting damage did not qualify under the plain language of the policies, while expressing no opinion on the number of covered occurrences or other potential damages.

business & regulatorypropertyprocedure

In this patent case, Fox Group sued Cree for infringing U.S. Patent No. 6,543,026, but after the court issued its claim construction, Fox moved for partial summary judgment of non-infringement, conceding it could not prove infringement under that construction. Cree agreed that non-infringement was appropriate but asked the court to retain jurisdiction over its counterclaims seeking declarations that the patent was invalid and unenforceable. The court granted summary judgment to Cree on the infringement claim, finding no genuine dispute of material fact, and dismissed the counterclaims as moot because, without any potentially infringing activity under the controlling claim construction, no Article III case or controversy remained to support declaratory relief. The decision rested on the requirement that a declaratory judgment action needs a real and immediate dispute between parties with adverse interests.

business & regulatoryprocedure

This case concerns Columbus-America Discovery Group's emergency motion to alter or amend a prior court order that had unsealed a 1998 Joint Inventory listing gold recovered from the S.S. Central America shipwreck. The court denied the motion, dissolved the stay on the unsealing order, and relieved a witness from obligations under a 1990 protective order for use in related Ohio litigation. CADG argued that release would harm marketing of sold gold, future recovery efforts, and historical value, but provided no specific evidence or foundation for trade-secret claims despite opportunities to submit sealed information. The court found that the inventory concerns only already-recovered and sold items, that related details were already public through books and journalism, and that no legitimate reason justified continued sealing. It emphasized the public interest in access to court records in this long-closed admiralty case.

procedure

In this case, the plaintiff sued his insurer in federal district court for $77,287 in damages under a homeowners insurance policy, relying on a forum-selection clause in the policy that designated the U.S. District Court as the proper venue. The court raised the issue of subject-matter jurisdiction on its own initiative, noting that the complaint alleged neither diversity of citizenship between the parties nor the existence of a federal question. Although the amount in controversy exceeded the statutory threshold, the plaintiff could not establish jurisdiction because the parties' contractual agreement alone cannot confer federal subject-matter jurisdiction. The court therefore directed the parties to provide further information showing that jurisdiction exists or face dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(h)(3).

procedurebusiness & regulatory

This case involves a federal criminal prosecution in which the court issued a sua sponte order to show cause regarding the defendant's conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(1)(C) for conduct related to witness intimidation or obstruction. Both the government and the defendant agreed that the Supreme Court's decision in Fowler v. United States required vacating the conviction because the jury had not been properly instructed on the statute's elements. The court therefore vacated and dismissed the conviction on Count Seven of the Second Superseding Indictment. Sentencing on the remaining counts was left scheduled for a later date.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned whether insurance policies issued to Dragas Management Corp. (DMC), a real estate developer, covered remediation costs DMC incurred after Chinese drywall installed in two housing developments caused corrosion, odors, and related damage. DMC, acting as general contractor, voluntarily inspected homes, offered remediation to affected homeowners, and entered remediation agreements that included releases of claims, even though few lawsuits were filed and none resulted in judgments or settlements against DMC. The insurers moved for summary judgment, arguing that the policies provided coverage only for sums DMC was legally obligated to pay as damages, and the court granted those motions while denying DMC's cross-motion. The core reasoning was that voluntary remediation undertaken before any binding legal obligation arose did not trigger coverage under the commercial general liability provisions, as the policies required a legal obligation to pay damages rather than proactive expenditures to resolve potential claims.

business & regulatorytorts & liability

This case is a patent infringement action in which The Fox Group, Inc. sued Cree, Inc. for allegedly making and selling silicon carbide substrates that infringe two patents (the '130 and '026 patents) covering methods and materials for growing low-defect single-crystal silicon carbide via seeded sublimation. Cree responded with counterclaims seeking declarations that the patents are not infringed, invalid, and unenforceable. After a Markman hearing, the district court construed the disputed claim terms in both patents, interpreting phrases such as "axial region of re-crystallized single crystal silicon carbide," "lateral region," and related growth-direction limitations according to the ordinary meaning to a person skilled in the art as informed by the intrinsic patent evidence.

business & regulatoryprocedure

The case involved a defendant convicted by a jury on multiple counts, including Count Seven for killing a witness to prevent communication with law enforcement under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(1)(C), which carries a mandatory life sentence. Following the Supreme Court's decision in Fowler v. United States, which held that the government must prove a reasonable likelihood that the victim would have communicated with a federal law enforcement officer, the district court ordered the parties to show cause why the Count Seven conviction should not be vacated. The court reasoned that its jury instructions, based on prior Fourth Circuit precedent in United States v. Harris, did not require the jury to consider the federal nexus element and instead explicitly instructed that no such proof was needed. This failure to instruct on an essential element of the offense under the new Supreme Court standard necessitated reconsideration of the conviction.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved determining whether defendant Jeffrey Boyd Ramsey was competent to stand trial on federal charges of sexual exploitation of a child, receipt of child pornography, and possession of child pornography. After Ramsey was evaluated at FCI Butner, psychologist Herbert Coard submitted a report diagnosing malingering, finding no severe mental illness or functional impairment, and concluding that Ramsey's uncooperative behavior was intentional. At the competency hearing, the parties stipulated to the report's contents, but disputed its implications; the court overruled objections based on marital and pastoral privileges, admitted corroborating testimony from Ramsey's wife and an FBI agent showing Ramsey's coherence in daily interactions, and determined that the evidence established competency by clear and convincing evidence. The court therefore found Ramsey competent to proceed and ordered arraignment and a detention hearing.

criminal lawprocedure

In Mullins v. River Docks, Corp., plaintiffs David and Lisa Mullins moved for default judgment against defendant Jasper Engine and Transmission Exchange, Inc. after the clerk entered default against it under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 55(a). The court granted the motion but held entry of the judgment amount and final judgment in abeyance until resolution of the claims against the remaining defendant, River Docks, Corp. The core reasoning was that just reason for delay existed under Rule 54(b) to avoid the risk of inconsistent judgments, given that the defendants were alleged to be jointly liable on several counts and similarly situated as to facts and defenses, consistent with Fourth Circuit precedent allowing a non-defaulting defendant's successful defense to benefit a defaulting co-defendant.

proceduretorts & liability

The case involved Tara Pennell, who has dwarfism, suing her former employers, Vacation Reservation Center, LLC and TNT Resorts, LLC, after being hired as a telemarketer but subjected to humiliating comments and actions by her supervisor due to her disability, resulting in her termination after three shifts. She claimed violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act and intentional infliction of emotional distress under Virginia law. The court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss the IIED count, finding that the complaint sufficiently alleged outrageous conduct and severe emotional distress comparable to precedents where such claims survived dismissal.

civil rightslabor & employmenttorts & liability

This case concerns a motion by non-parties to modify a longstanding protective order from an admiralty proceeding involving the recovery of gold from the shipwreck of the S.S. Central America. The movants sought access to a sealed joint inventory of the recovered gold for use in a separate lawsuit pending in the Southern District of Ohio. The court granted the motion and ordered the inventory unsealed, finding that the original basis for sealing—the potential impact on the marketing and sale of the gold—no longer existed because the gold had been sold years earlier and all interested parties had divested their interests with no objections to release. A follow-up order stayed the unsealing pending resolution of an emergency motion filed by Columbus-America Discovery Group.

procedureproperty

In Melton v. Suntrust Bank, the plaintiffs sued in Virginia state court for breach of contract and negligent processing of their mortgage modification application under the federal HAMP program, also seeking a preliminary injunction against foreclosure of their home. The defendants removed the case to federal district court, asserting federal question jurisdiction because the claims involved HAMP, a program created under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. The court examined whether subject matter jurisdiction existed, observing that HAMP provides no private cause of action and that the state-law claims do not necessarily depend on the resolution of substantial federal issues, with HAMP serving only as background to an otherwise state-law dispute. The court directed the parties to address jurisdiction within ten days or face remand to state court.

federal powerprocedureproperty