June 16, 2025
The Fourth Circuit has kept its revival of a no-poach wage-fixing case against some of the nation’s biggest warship makers intact, rejecting a petition to rehear the case en banc after a three-judge panel kicked it back to district court last month.
The naval contractors accused of colluding on illegal no-poach agreements — including General Dynamics, Huntington Ingalls Industries and CACI — had petitioned the full circuit for a rehearing in late May. But on Friday, the court’s clerk wrote that none of the judges had requested a vote on rehearing the case by the full circuit.
Last year, U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Trenga of the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed the suit, ruling that because the plaintiffs in the case had adequately alleged a cover-up of the conspiracy, the typical four-year statute of limitations on the claims didn’t apply. But in a 2-1 decision May 9, the circuit panel reversed Judge Trenga’s ruling.
“Surely, Congress did not intend for us to reward conspirators who are savvy enough to avoid taking notes while punishing those who take notes but later destroy them,” U.S. Circuit Judge James A. Wynn wrote for the majority last month, citing the circuit’s 1995 ruling in Supermarket of Marlinton v. Meadow Gold Dairies. “This would unjustly ‘benefit those defendants who were cunning enough to commit their crimes initially in such a manner that there was no need for further concealment.'”
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The plaintiffs are represented by Brent W. Johnson, Steven J. Toll, Robert W. Cobbs, Alison S. Deich, Zachary R. Glubiak and Sabrina S. Merold of Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, by Shana E. Scarlett, Rio S. Pierce, Steve W. Berman, Kevin K. Green and Elaine T. Byszewski of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, by George F. Farah, Nicholas Jackson and Simon Wiener of Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC, by Candice J. Enders and Julia R. McGrath of Berger Montague, and by Brian D. Clark, Stephen J. Teti and Arielle S. Wagner of Lockridge Grindal Nauen PLLP.
Read 4th Circ. Upholds Revival of Naval Engineers’ No-Poach Case.