Mark Vogel Acquisitions, LLC; Morgan Central, LLC; Mark Vogel v. Prince George’s County, Md; Angie Rodgers

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 25-2030
MARK VOGEL ACQUISITIONS, LLC; MORGAN CENTRAL, LLC; MARK VOGEL,
Plaintiffs – Appellants,
v.
PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY, MD; ANGIE RODGERS,
Defendants – Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Greenbelt.
Lydia Kay Griggsby, District Judge. (8:24-cv-03008-LKG)
Submitted: February 10, 2026 Decided: April 7, 2026
Before HARRIS, QUATTLEBAUM, and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished opinion. Judge Heytens wrote the opinion, which Judge Harris
and Judge Quattlebaum joined.
ON BRIEF: Jordan Howlette, JUSTLY PRUDENT, Washington, D.C., for Appellants.
Anthony D. Jones, County Attorney, Stephen J. Williams, Principal Deputy County
Attorney, Andrew J. Murray, Associate County Attorney, PRINCE GEORGE’S COUNTY
OFFICE OF LAW, Largo, Maryland, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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TOBY HEYTENS, Circuit Judge:
“To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter,
accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quotation marks removed). Pleading facts that are “merely
consistent with” “a claim of entitlement to relief ” is insufficient. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,
550 U.S. 544, 557–58 (2007).
Those principles resolve this appeal. Plaintiffs challenge the district court’s
dismissal of three claims that all require proof of intent to discriminate based on race. But
their complaint does not contain sufficient facts to raise a plausible inference of race-based
disparate treatment. We thus affirm.
* * *
Plaintiff Mark Vogel and two companies he owns (plaintiffs Mark Vogel
Acquisitions, LLC and Morgan Central, LLC) unsuccessfully tried to buy a piece of land
that is near a Metro station and owned by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit
Authority (WMATA). The complaint asserts that defendant Prince George’s County,
Maryland (the jurisdiction in which the target property is located) blocked the proposed
sale through the actions of one of its officers, defendant Angie Rodgers. Plaintiffs sued,
asserting race discrimination claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, and 1985(3).*
* The complaint also asserted a state-law claim. Because plaintiffs’ opening brief
makes no reference to that claim, we deem it abandoned. See Grayson O Co. v. Agadir Int’l
LLC, 856 F.3d 307, 316 (4th Cir. 2017).

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Plaintiffs concede that each of these claims requires proving intent to discriminate based
on race.
The district court dismissed the complaint, concluding plaintiffs had “not alleged
sufficient facts to show a plausible inference of intentional discrimination upon the basis
of race.” JA 77. “We review the grant of a motion to dismiss de novo, accepting the
complaint’s factual allegations as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the
plaintiff.” In re Marriott Int’l, Inc., 31 F.4th 898, 901 (4th Cir. 2022).
* * *
Like the district court, we conclude the facts alleged in the complaint do not raise a
plausible inference of disparate treatment based on race. The complaint asserts only three
relevant facts: (1) Vogel is White; (2) the defendants blocked the sale of this particular
piece of land to Vogel and his companies; and (3) the defendants knew about but did not
interfere with the sale of a different WMATA-owned property next to a different Metro
station to a development firm “originally founded and currently led by an African American
male.” JA 15.
Those cursory allegations do not give rise to a plausible inference that the reason
the County treated the two situations differently is that Vogel is White and the other
developer is Black. Despite the complaint’s conclusory assertion that the other firm is
“[s]imilarly [s]ituated” to plaintiffs, the complaint contains no facts whatsoever to support
its assertion that “Mr. Vogel’s race is the only meaningful difference” between the two
circumstances. JA 15 (emphasis added). To the contrary, the complaint is clear that the two
developers wanted to buy different properties that happened to be in the same county.

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What is more, the complaint sets out an innocent—and more “natural”—explanation
for why the County treated the two situations differently: The County wanted to buy the
same land plaintiffs wanted to buy. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 566. The complaint asserts:
(1) the target parcel was sandwiched between two other plots; (2) plaintiffs already owned
one of the neighboring plots and later acquired the other; and (3) Rodgers (the County
official) told Vogel “that the County did not want him to purchase [the target parcel]
because ‘it was not interested in competing with him.’ ” JA 12. The complaint also states
that the County sent plaintiffs “a Letter of Intent that confirmed” the County’s “interest in
purchasing” the two adjacent plots “from Plaintiffs.” JA 13 (emphasis added). It is hardly
surprising, then, that the County wanted to prevent plaintiffs from buying the geographic
heart of the land they both coveted. See Twombly, 550 U.S. at 566–67 (emphasizing that
the presence of an “obvious alternative explanation” weakens any inference of unlawful
motivation).
* * *
The district court correctly held the complaint failed to plausibly allege disparate
treatment based on race. We need not—and thus do not—reach any other issues. We
dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately
presented in the materials before us and argument would not aid the decisional process.
The judgment is
AFFIRMED.

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