Mealey's (February 10, 2021, 3:37 PM EST) -- RICHMOND, Va. — A divided Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on Feb. 9 in an unpublished opinion affirmed a trial court’s summary judgment ruling for Lowe’s Companies Inc. in a race discrimination and defamation lawsuit by a former executive, with the majority finding that there was no racial link to the executive’s termination while the partially dissenting judge wrote that the majority had been “too quick to affirm” while assuming that the CEO’s preference for another executive was due to a close working relationship rather than race....