Case Title: Westlake Legal Group v. Flynn

Citation: 

Docket Number: 160013

State: virginia

Court: Virginia Supreme Court

Date: 2017-04-13T00:00:00Z

Document:
PRESENT:  Lemons, C.J., Goodwyn, Powell, McClanahan, Kelsey, and McCullough, JJ., and 
Russell, S.J. 
 
WESTLAKE LEGAL GROUP, 
f/k/a PLOFCHAN & ASSOCIATES 
 
 
 
          OPINION BY  
v.  Record No. 160013                                              SENIOR JUSTICE CHARLES S. RUSSELL 
                                                                                                           April 13, 2017 
EILEEN FLYNN 
 
 
FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF LOUDOUN COUNTY 
 
 
                                 Jeanette A. Irby, Judge 
 
 
This is an appeal by an attorney from an award of sanctions against him arising out of his 
efforts to collect fees and costs from a client.  We affirm the award. 
FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS 
 
In November of 2008, Eileen Flynn (the “client”) entered into a written “representation 
agreement” with Plofchan & Associates, later known as Westlake Legal Group, a law firm 
practicing in Loudoun County (the “attorney”), for legal services to be rendered to her in a 
domestic relations case.  The agreement provided for hourly fee rates for services by lawyers and 
legal assistants and for the client’s responsibility for costs and expenses.  It also provided that in 
the event the firm should be required to institute legal proceedings against the client for sums due 
under the agreement, the firm would be its own attorney and the client would be responsible for 
its fees in collection proceedings at a $400 hourly rate. 
 
This appeal arises out of an additional provision of the agreement wherein the client 
agreed that in the event she did not pay any bill from the attorney within 45 days of the billing, 
her entire account would be due and accrue interest at an annual rate of 18%.  Thomas K. 
Plofchan, Jr. or Kathryn G. Plofchan were appointed her attorney-in-fact to confess judgment 
 
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against her in any Virginia circuit court for the entire unpaid balance due under the agreement.  
The confessed-judgment clause contained the warning required by Code § 8.01-433.1. 
 
On April 30, 2014, the attorney, then using the name Westlake Legal Group, billed the 
client for $8,910.07.  On June 5, 2014, the attorney billed the client for an additional $550.  Both 
bills were addressed to the client at an address in Purcellville, Virginia.  On the next day, June 6, 
2014, Thomas K. Plofchan, Jr., as attorney in fact for the client, filed a confession of judgment 
against her in the clerk’s office of the Circuit Court of Loudoun County in the amount of 
$9,460.07, with interest at 18% from April 30, 2014.  The confessed judgment showed the 
client’s address as “21804 Cresent [sic] Park Square, Broadlands, VA 20148.”  The clerk entered 
an order of judgment and issued a certified copy of the order for service by the sheriff on the 
client in compliance with the provisions of Code § 8.01-438.  On June 10, 2014, the sheriff 
returned the papers to the clerk marked “not found.”  The return contained the notation 
“misspelled street address.”  It is undisputed that no copy of the judgment was ever served on the 
client. 
 
On March 18, 2015, the attorney filed a garnishment suggestion against the client, this 
time giving her address as “2221 Hunters Run Dr., Reston, VA 20191.”1  The suggestion 
claimed a debt of $11,997.97 and identified the garnishee as the client’s employer in Ashburn, 
Virginia.  The clerk issued a garnishment summons that was served upon both the client and her 
employer. 
                     
 
1 Despite the differing addresses appearing in the documents contained in the record, the 
attorney’s opening brief on appeal states, “The Clerk . . . had the Sheriff serve a copy of the 
Garnishment Summons on Flynn at the exact address given to the Clerk to serve the confessed 
judgment order.” 
 
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The client obtained new counsel and moved the court to enter an order declaring the 
confessed judgment void nunc pro tunc because of failure to serve it on her as required by Code 
§ 8.01-438.  The attorney moved to suffer a voluntary nonsuit.  The client moved the court for an 
award of monetary sanctions in the form of recovery of her new counsel’s fees.  At a hearing on 
September 4, 2015, the court entered four orders:  (1) granting the nonsuit, (2) quashing the 
confessed judgment nunc pro tunc, (3) ordering payment to the client of all sums held by the 
clerk by reason of the garnishment, and (4) pursuant to Code § 8.01-271.1, awarding sanctions in 
the amount of $1,805 to be paid by the attorney to the client as reasonable expenses she incurred 
by reason of the garnishment proceedings.  We awarded the attorney an appeal of the order 
granting sanctions. 
ANALYSIS 
 
A question of law is presented by an assertion that a court improperly asserted 
jurisdiction.  We review such questions de novo.  Glasser & Glasser, PLC v. Jack Bays, Inc., 
285 Va. 358, 369, 741 S.E.2d 599, 604 (2013).  On appellate review of the imposition of 
sanctions imposed under Code § 8.01-271.1, we apply an abuse of discretion standard based 
upon objective reasonableness.  Shebelskie v. Brown,  287 Va. 18, 26, 752 S.E.2d 877, 881 
(2014). 
 
The attorney presented six assignments of error.  We awarded this appeal as to the first 
five and refused the sixth.  Our holding on the first assignment of error is dispositive of the 
appeal for the reasons expressed below. 
 
The attorney’s first assignment of error is that the circuit court erred in asserting 
jurisdiction after it had “already entered an order dismissing the confessed judgment action . . . 
 
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which rendered the garnishment action moot.”2  The attorney argues on appeal that his voluntary 
nonsuit had the effect of depriving the court of jurisdiction:  “Because the underlying judgment 
has been dismissed, the circuit court lost jurisdiction to enter a judgment in the garnishment 
action.  Without jurisdiction, the court could not impose sanctions.” 
 
We find no merit in the attorney’s argument.  The court’s authority to impose sanctions 
did not depend on the validity of the confessed judgment of September 4, 2015, when the 
sanctions were imposed.  Indeed, the confessed judgment had then been void by operation of law 
for more than a year.  Code § 8.01-438 provides in pertinent part: 
If a judgment is confessed by an attorney-in-fact, it shall be the duty of the 
clerk within ten days from the entry thereof to cause to be served upon the 
judgment debtor a certified copy of the order so entered in the common-law 
order book, to which order shall be appended a notice setting forth the 
provisions of § 8.01-433.  The officer who serves the order shall make return 
thereof within ten days after service to the clerk.  The clerk shall promptly file 
the order with the papers in the case.  The failure to serve a copy of the order 
within sixty days from the date of entry thereof shall render the judgment void 
as to any debtor not so served. 
 
 
Confessed judgments are creatures of statute in Virginia.  Because they provide for 
judicial enforcement powers without the protections provided by the adversary judicial process, 
and to the extent they are in derogation of the common law,3 such statutes are strictly construed.  
                     
 
2 The record indicates that after the garnishment summons had been served, the client’s 
new counsel appeared in the case by filing his motion to quash the confessed judgment.  
Nevertheless, the attorney, without giving notice to the client or her new counsel, sent his motion 
for nonsuit to the clerk accompanied by a draft order of nonsuit.  The court evidently entered this 
order on September 1, 2015 without endorsement by new counsel.  Three days later another copy 
of the nonsuit order was entered at the September 4 hearing, this time endorsed “objected to” by 
new counsel. 
 
3 In Saunders v. Lipscomb, 90 Va. 647, 652, 19 S.E.2d 450, 451 (1894), we observed that 
“[j]udgments entered for the plaintiff upon the defendant’s admission of the facts and the law, 
were known to the common law and exist independently of statutes . . . .”  That case, and the 
earlier authorities it cited, referred to fixed debts acknowledged by both creditor and debtor, not 
to contracts for future services of unknown extent.  A construction of the confessed judgment 
statutes to include such claims would in our view be in derogation of the common law. 
 
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See, e.g., Wetlands Am. Trust, Inc. v. White Cloud Nine Ventures, L.P., 291 Va. 153, 165, 782 
S.E.2d 131, 138 (2016) (statutes in derogation of common law are subject to strict 
interpretation); Chacey v. Garvey, 291 Va. 1, 10, 781 S.E.2d 357, 361 (2015) (same); Isbell v. 
Commercial Inv. Assocs., Inc., 273 Va. 605, 613, 644 S.E.2d 72, 75 (2007) (same); Lansdowne 
Dev. Co., L.L.C. v. Xerox Realty Corp., 257 Va. 392, 403, 514 S.E.2d 157, 162 (1999) (same); 
Chesapeake & Ohio Ry. Co. v. Kinzer, 206 Va. 175, 181, 142 S.E.2d 514, 518 (1965) (same); see 
also Safrin v. Travaini Pumps USA, Inc., 269 Va. 412, 419, 611 S.E.2d 352, 356 (2005) 
(observing that “[o]btaining a judgment by confession pursuant to Code § 8.01-432 is an 
extraordinary remedy”).  The above-quoted provisions of Code § 8.01-438 are clearly intended 
to afford a debtor a limited opportunity to have a day in court to assert a defense to a creditor’s 
claim.  Those provisions are clearly self-executing.  The confessed judgment became void sixty 
days after its entry on June 5, 2014 because of failure to serve a certified copy on the client.  
Accordingly, neither the nonsuit nor the order declaring the judgment void nunc pro tunc had 
any effect on the court’s jurisdiction. 
 
The court’s jurisdiction to impose sanctions stands upon a different foundation.  Code 
§ 8.01-271.1 provides, in pertinent part: 
The signature of an attorney or party constitutes a certificate by him that (i) he 
has read the pleading, motion, or other paper, (ii) to the best of his knowledge, 
information and belief, formed after reasonable inquiry, it is well grounded in 
fact and is warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the 
extension, modification, or reversal of existing law, and (iii) it is not interposed 
for any improper purpose, such as to harass or to cause unnecessary delay or 
needless increase in the cost of litigation. 
 
. . . . 
 
 
If a pleading, motion or other paper is signed or made in violation of 
this rule, the court, upon motion or upon its own initiative, shall impose upon 
the person who signed the paper or made the motion, a represented party, or 
both, an appropriate sanction, which may include an order to pay to the other 
 
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party or parties the amount of the reasonable expenses incurred because of the 
filing of the pleading, motion, or other paper or making of the motion, 
including a reasonable attorney’s fee. 
 
The record before the circuit court at the hearing on September 4, 2015 contained evidence of 
facts clearly sufficient to establish jurisdiction to consider and award sanctions under this 
section.  When the attorney filed the garnishment suggestion in March 2015, the sheriff’s “not 
found” return on the certified copy of the confessed judgment had been in the clerk’s records 
open to public view for over nine months.  A few minutes of search would have revealed to the 
attorney that the judgment was void for failure to comply with Code § 8.01-438.4  Making no 
such search, he proceeded with the garnishment of the client’s wages. 
 
The attorney’s second and third assignments of error consist of claims that, even if it had 
jurisdiction, the circuit court abused its discretion in deciding to impose sanctions.  We do not 
reach these assignments because they were not preserved for appeal.  The arguments they 
contain were made for the first time in a document filed September 23, 2015 and captioned 
“Plaintiff’s Written Objections to the Court’s September 4, 2015 Ruling on Defendant’s Motion 
for Sanctions and Motion to Reconsider.”  A motion to reconsider is insufficient to preserve an 
                     
 
4 We note that the confessed judgment may have been void for a more fundamental 
reason.  The confessed judgment was entered pursuant to Code § 8.01-432, which provides that 
“[any] person being indebted to another person” may personally or by his attorney-in-fact, 
confess judgment in favor of his creditor whether suit be pending or not.  (Emphasis added.)  The 
following section provides for setting such judgments aside on “any ground that would have 
been an adequate defense to an action brought on the creditor’s note, bond or other evidence of 
debt upon which such judgment was confessed.”  Code § 8.01-433 (emphasis added).  This 
language supports the conclusion that Code §  8.01-432 was intended to apply to debts that were 
fixed, liquidated, and acknowledged by both debtor and creditor when executing the contract 
containing the confessed judgment provision.  The section would therefore not apply to a 
contract for future services, when no debt yet existed and its amount could not yet be known.  
See Little v. Dyer, 27 N.E. 905, 907 (Ill. 1891); cf. Safrin, 269 Va. 412, 611 S.E.2d 352 (question 
not decided because barred by Rule 1:1).  In the present case, that question was never presented 
to the circuit court and we therefore do not decide it here. 
 
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argument not previously presented unless the record establishes that the court had an opportunity 
to rule on the motion.  Brandon v. Cox, 284 Va. 251, 256, 736 S.E.2d 695, 697 (2012).  The 
record contains no indication that the motion was ever heard or decided, or that a hearing was 
ever requested thereon.  The court never entered an order modifying, suspending or vacating the 
sanctions order of September 4.  It therefore became final and beyond the control of the circuit 
court 21 days after its entry.  Rule 1:1. 
 
The attorney’s fourth assignment of error states only that the circuit court abused its 
discretion by awarding sanctions “[w]here (a) Flynn’s pleadings were not necessarily nor 
reasonably grounded in law and (b) the Attorney’s Fees were unsubstantiated.”  The attorney’s 
argument fails to identify any legal deficiency in the client’s pleadings and we perceive none.  
The record shows that the client’s new counsel presented an affidavit to the court specifying the 
hours devoted to the case and his charges therefor.  The court did not abuse its discretion in 
basing its award of sanctions upon this affidavit.  We therefore find the fourth assignment of 
error to be without merit. 
 
The argument made by the attorney’s fifth assignment of error was never presented to the 
circuit court and is thus barred by Rule 5:25. 
CONCLUSION 
 
The attorney had a duty imposed upon him by Code § 8.01-271.1 not to file any pleading, 
motion or other paper unless he had read it, and to the best of his knowledge, information and 
belief formed after reasonable inquiry it was well grounded in fact and warranted by law.  He 
filed a suggestion in garnishment to divert the client’s wages in an effort to enforce a judgment 
that had been void by operation of law for more than a year, a situation a reasonable inquiry 
would have disclosed.  His breach of that duty resulted in harm to the client consisting of 
 
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attorney’s fees, costs and expenses including those incurred by reason of the attorney’s meritless 
appeal to this Court.  We will accordingly affirm the judgment of the circuit court and remand 
the case to that court with direction, after due notice and hearing, to impose such additional 
sanctions as the court finds appropriate to recompense the client’s additional expenses, including 
reasonable attorney’s fees, incurred by reason of this appeal. 
 
Affirmed and remanded.