Opinion ID: 2648786
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sanction against Shebelskie

Text: Shebelskie claims that he neither signed a pleading nor made a motion such that he could be sanctioned under Code § 8.01-271.1. As Larry concedes, the Show Cause Response Brief was signed by Wright alone and so cannot serve as a basis for sanctioning Shebelskie. With respect to the only other conduct identified by the circuit court as being the subject of the sanction, Shebelskie's oral argument at the August 2011 hearing, that argument was not an oral motion under Code § 8.01-271.1. Absent ambiguity or an absurd result, ordinary principles of statutory construction require us to construe the term motion according to its plain meaning. See Nolte v. MT Tech. Enters., LLC, 284 Va. 80, 89-90, 726 S.E.2d 339, 344 (2012). A motion is a written or oral application requesting a court to make a specified ruling or order. Black's Law Dictionary 1106 (9th ed. 2009). At the August 2011 hearing, Shebelskie presented argument as to why Betty should not be held in contempt. That argument, however, was in response to Larry's motion for the issuance of a rule to show cause and the circuit court's issuance of the rule. 11 At the time of the hearing, Shebelskie had neither filed nor made orally any motion under consideration by the court. To hold that Shebelskie's argument was nevertheless an oral motion under Code § 8.01-271.1 would extend the word motion beyond its plain meaning and would mean that any oral argument is a motion under the statute. The General Assembly chose the word motion intentionally, and we will not construe the term beyond its intended meaning to encompass an argument made in response to an opposing party's motion. 6 See Kummer v. Donak, 282 Va. 301, 304, 715 S.E.2d 7, 9 (2011) (This Court assumes the legislature chose [its] words with care and is bound by those words in construing the statute.). Thus, the circuit court was influenced by [a] mistake of law and therefore abused its discretion by imposing a sanction against Shebelskie under Code § 8.01-271.1. Lawlor, 285 Va. at 213, 738 S.E.2d at 861 (internal quotation marks omitted).