UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 12-1919
CHARLES PILGER,
Plaintiff – Appellant,
v.
D. M. BOWMAN, INC.,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of
Maryland, at Baltimore. William D. Quarles, Jr., District
Judge. (1:10-cv-00597-WDQ)
Submitted: May 26, 2013 Decided: May 31, 2013
Before MOTZ and SHEDD, Circuit Judges, and HAMILTON, Senior
Circuit Judge.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Thomas S. Gill, THOMAS S. GILL, P.C., Frederick, Maryland, for
Appellant. Stanley J. Reed, Julie A. Reddig, LERCH, EARLY &
BREWER, Bethesda, Maryland, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Charles Pilger appeals the district court’s orders:
(1) entering summary judgment for Defendant on Pilger’s Family
Medical Leave Act (FMLA) claim; and (2) entering judgment for
Defendant in accordance with a jury’s verdict on Pilger’s claim
that he was terminated from employment in violation of the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). We affirm.
With respect to Pilger’s claim of a violation of the
FMLA, we have reviewed the record and find no reversible error.
Accordingly, we affirm on the reasoning of the district court.
Pilger v. D.M. Bowman, Inc., No. 1:10-cv-00597-WDQ (D. Md. July
3, 2011).
We reject Pilger’s claim that the district court erred
in instructing the jury as to liability under the ADEA. A
district court is “necessarily vested with a great deal of
discretion in constructing the specific form and content of jury
instructions.” Hardin v. Ski Venture, Inc., 50 F.3d 1291, 1293
(4th Cir. 1995). “Instructions will be considered adequate if
construed as a whole, and in light of the whole record, they
adequately inform the jury of the controlling legal principles
without misleading or confusing the jury to the prejudice of the
objecting party.” Rowland v. Am. Gen. Fin., Inc., 340 F.3d 187,
191 (4th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks and alterations
omitted). “We review challenges to jury instructions for abuse
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of discretion.” Id. Flawed jury instructions will not result
in reversal absent a showing that the error seriously prejudiced
the challenging party. Id.
Here, we discern no abuse of discretion in the court’s
instructions, which, when considered in their entirety, fully
and correctly informed the jury of the applicable law and were
neither misleading nor confusing. In particular, there was no
error in instructing the jury that Pilger had to prove that his
age was “the reason” that he was fired. See Gross v. FBL Fin.
Servs., Inc., 557 U.S. 167, 176 (2009) (stating that in ADEA
cases, the plaintiff must show that “age was the ‘reason’ that
the employer decided to act”).
We accordingly affirm. We dispense with oral argument
because the facts and legal contentions are adequately presented
in the materials before the court and argument would not aid the
decisional process.
AFFIRMED
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