Julia A. Bowser v. Lillian McDonald Ireland

• Court: Court of Appeals of Virginia
• Decided: December 30, 2024
• Docket: 1419231
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

COURT OF APPEALS OF VIRGINIA UNPUBLISHED

Present: Judges Beales, Fulton and Lorish Argued at Norfolk, Virginia

JULIA A. BOWSER MEMORANDUM OPINION* BY v. Record No. 1419-23-1 JUDGE JUNIUS P. FULTON, III DECEMBER 30, 2024 LILLIAN MCDONALD IRELAND

FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE CITY OF CHESAPEAKE Rufus A. Banks, Jr., Judge

Jeremy C. Mason (J.C. Mason Law PLC, on brief), for appellant.

Patrick J. Genova (Teumer & Drash, on brief), for appellee.

Julia Bowser filed a complaint against Lillian Ireland seeking to recover for injuries she

sustained as the result of a motor vehicle accident. On March 23, 2023, Ireland filed a motion to

enforce settlement alleging that Bowser’s counsel had accepted an offer to settle the case for $7,500.

Bowser admitted that her counsel accepted the settlement offer but she requested that the trial court

deny Ireland’s motion to enforce the settlement because “no finalized settlement ha[d] been

reached.” The trial court granted Ireland’s motion by a final order entered on June 12, 2023.

Finding no error, we affirm.1

* This opinion is not designated for publication. See Code § 17.1-413(A). 1 Ireland filed a motion to dismiss Bowser’s appeal based on failure to timely file an opening brief by September 25, 2023, which is currently pending before this Court. However, this Court granted Bowser’s motion for an extension of time to file her opening brief on October 23, 2023, and an opening brief was timely filed on October 30, 2023. Ireland’s motion is, therefore, rendered moot. I. BACKGROUND

Because the facts of the underlying motor vehicle accident are not necessary to this

Court’s resolution of the appeal, we merely note that Bowser and Ireland were involved in an

accident on April 13, 2017.

On June 20, 2019, after suffering a nonsuit of her initial claim, Bowser refiled her

complaint alleging continuing pain and future medical expenses in the Circuit Court for the City

of Chesapeake. Specifically, Bowser claimed damages for past and future medical expenses,

past and future physical pain and mental anguish, past lost wages and future lost wage-earning

capacity, and all other forms of damages available to her in the sum of $40,000. Between

December 17, 2021, and June 18, 2022, counsel for Bowser (Jeremy Mason) and counsel for

Ireland (Patrick Genova) exchanged multiple emails negotiating a settlement amount, all of

which indicated that the signing of a “full and final release” would be a part of any settlement

agreement. After ongoing settlement negotiations, Genova made an offer of $7,500 to Mason

via a phone call to settle all claims in the dispute. The offer stipulated that Ireland agreed to pay

$7,500 in exchange for the dismissal of all claims at issue in the suit and an agreement that

Bowser would be responsible for any liens associated with the case. On January 20, 2023,

Mason responded via email that after speaking with his client, Bowser accepted the settlement

offer that had been communicated by that phone call. Settlement documents were sent to Mason

on January 23, 2023. After failing to receive the signed settlement documents from Mason,

Genova filed a motion to enforce settlement on March 23, 2023. Mason subsequently responded

that Bowser was no longer in agreement with the settlement. After hearing oral argument on

April 19, 2023, the trial court issued a letter opinion, dated May 24, 2023, granting Ireland’s

motion to enforce settlement. This appeal follows.

-2- II. ANALYSIS

Bowser assigns error to the trial court’s granting of Ireland’s motion to enforce

settlement, asserting that (1): “[t]he trial court erred by not acknowledging [that] . . . Bowser

fail[ed] to understand . . . or appreciate the extent of her verbal response to [her] counsel to agree

to settle until [she] viewed the release sent by [Ireland]”; and (2) “[t]he trial court erred by not

acknowledging the parties did not discuss or agree to the signing or embracing of any release, or

any terms of any release as a part of [sic] condition of the settlement.” Bowser’s second

assignment of error is essentially derivative of the first based on the fact that she failed to

understand the ramifications of saying “yes” to her attorney regarding settlement because she did

not realize that her acceptance of a settlement meant that she would have to sign a release.

It is “well settled that an attorney has no power, by mere virtue of his retainer and without

express authority, to bind his client by a compromise of a pending suit or other matter [entrusted]

to his care.” Dawson v. Hotchkiss, 160 Va. 577, 581 (1933). “[A] compromise made by an

attorney without authority or in violation of his client’s commands will not be enforced to the

client’s injury, yet if the authority of the attorney be apparent, then his client will be bound.”

Walson v. Walson, 37 Va. App. 208, 214 (2001) (quoting Singer Sewing Mach. Co. v. Ferrell,

144 Va. 395, 403-04 (1926)). Further, as a general rule, the knowledge of an agent is imputed to

his or her principal, especially when the agent is an attorney authorized to act on the client’s

behalf. See generally Yamada v. McLeod, 243 Va. 426, 433 (1992) (citing Allen Realty Corp. v.

Holbert, 227 Va. 441, 446 (1984)).

In cases where there is a dispute over whether an attorney has apparent authority, the trial

court must evaluate the credibility of the witnesses and their testimony to resolve these disputes.

See Kaplan v. Kaplan, No. 0987-92-1, slip op. at 4-5, 1993 Va. App. LEXIS 420, at *6-*7 (Sept.

-3- 14, 1993).2 “The credibility of the witness[] . . . [is a] matter[] solely for the fact finder,” Elliott

v. Commonwealth, 277 Va. 457, 462 (2009), and only if the witness’s testimony is inherently

incredible as a matter of law will the appellate court disturb the trial court’s determination,

Nobrega v. Commonwealth, 271 Va. 508, 518 (2006). Nor will this Court, on appeal, disturb the

findings of the trial court regarding the authority of the agent unless plainly wrong. Walson, 37

Va. App. at 214.

While there is no dispute that Bowser gave her attorney, Mason, the authority to settle the

case on her behalf, she assigns error to the trial court’s granting the motion to enforce settlement

because she did not understand or appreciate that her attorney’s acceptance was effective since

she had not yet reviewed the written release. We find that her apparent misunderstanding

constitutes a unilateral mistake. At a hearing on the motion to enforce settlement, the trial court,

based on the pleadings in response to the motion and factual concessions made on Bowser’s

behalf, determined that Bowser had given her attorney, Mason, the authority to settle the case,

that he had done his duty by communicating the settlement offer to her, and that after speaking

with Mason, she agreed to the terms of the settlement. Once she agreed to the terms, he

communicated her acceptance to Genova, Ireland’s counsel. In its letter opinion, the trial court

specifically stated that there was “no question concerning the apparent authority of plaintiff’s

counsel to enter such settlement, thereby binding the plaintiff.” The remaining issue, then, is

whether Mason’s knowledge that the settlement agreement would include a release of all claims

is then imputed to Bowser since Mason was acting as Bowser’s agent.

At oral argument before this Court, Mason conceded that he understood that settlement of

Bowser’s claim meant dismissal of the pending lawsuit and that he communicated what settling

2 We acknowledge that Kaplan is an unpublished decision and, therefore, is not binding on this Court, but can be used as persuasive authority. -4- the case would mean to Bowser when they discussed his authority to negotiate and accept a

settlement offer on her behalf. Further, Mason acknowledged that under basic principles of

agency, his knowledge of the fact that this settlement included a release of all claims asserted in

the pending lawsuit would be imputed to his client due to the apparent authority Bowser granted

him to negotiate and accept the settlement offer.3 Therefore, based on the trial court’s finding

that Mason had apparent authority to settle the claim on Bowser’s behalf and the basic principle

of agency theory that an agent’s knowledge is imputed to the principal, we hold that the trial

court did not err in finding that Bowser was bound by the settlement agreement as articulated to

her by her attorney, Mason, and in subsequently granting Ireland’s motion to enforce settlement.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the trial court.

Affirmed.

3 The damages sought in Bowser’s complaint subsumed the very claims Bowser articulates as the basis for her refusal to sign the release. -5-