Chester to return to court

With 83 pounds of lawsuit papers in tow, Francis Chester will appear in Augusta County Circuit Court today for a motions hearing on his suit calling for the 2009 county reassessment to be set aside by the board of supervisors.

But the Churchville attorney will likely be arguing more about possible sanctions against him and less about the lawsuit, which he plans to withdraw and refile, he said Wednesday.

Augusta County Attorney Patrick Morgan has asked that Chester’s lawsuit be dismissed on 23 grounds and moved for sanctions against Chester for bringing the complaint.

“If something like that does happen, I’m definitely going to appeal it to the Supreme Court,” Chester said.

The sanctions motion against Chester requests, but is not limited to, the paying of attorney’s fees and expenses related to the suit.

Chester filed suit in March, asking the circuit court to set aside the 2009 reassessment as a class action remedy for 10,466 county property owners he claims to represent. He said the work of the company performing the assessment, Blue Ridge Mass Appraisal, was “extremely flawed.”

But Chester last week filed a motion for nonsuit, a one-time legal maneuver that would allow him to withdraw and refile the case.

That procedure won’t be contested, legal experts said Wednesday. Sanctions will likely dominate proceedings.

Morgan’s motions argue Chester should have known his class action suit was not allowed under Virginia law. He also cited several Virginia Code statutes pointing to reassessment appeals as remedies rather than a lawsuit. And the county attorney provided a copy of an opinion offered by the Virginia Attorney General Bill Mims that says boards of supervisors have no power to change assessments.

Chester said Mims’ opinion is merely advisory.

“They’re pulling everything they can,” Chester said of county officials. “Not once have I been sanctioned … in 49 years.”

“The taxpayer shouldn’t have to bear the expense of a lawsuit that wasn’t well grounded in the law,” Morgan said. “We’ll be prepared to put on some evidence.”
Sanctions can be imposed by judges if an attorney files a complaint without any “reasonable basis in fact and law,” said University of Virginia School of Law professor George Rutherglen.

“When an attorney is faced with a seemingly baseless claim, the attorney will often seek to not only get the lawsuit dismissed, but to recover the cost of defense,” Rutherglen said.

Judge Victor V. Ludwig will weigh Morgan’s sanctions argument. Often, sanctions prevent the filing of a similar lawsuit, Rutherglen said.

At the heart of Morgan’s motions is an argument that class action suits are not authorized in Virginia. Chester counters they are not expressly prohibited.
“We’re traversing here on unmarked territory,” he said.

Rutherglen said class actions are not generally allowed in Virginia trial courts.

Chester said the alternative — filing lawsuits on behalf of more than 10,000 individuals — would cost more than $1 million and require nine years of hearings (if the circuit court heard no other cases and skipped holidays).

Chester plans to file a new “mass appeal of the mass assessment” before leaving the courthouse.