Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, April 28, 1995 TAG: 9504280018
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: A-9 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Snyder-Falkinham's lawyer, Michael Horwatt of McLean, contended that an open-court hearing last year to decide whether the settlement was valid had wrongly admitted information from earlier and supposedly confidential mediation proceedings between Snyder-Falkinham's former lawyers and Stockburger's.
Horwatt portrayed the appeal as one which would decide whether mediation - used during civil suits as a cheaper, faster alternative to arguing the cases in court - would remain viable.
But the Supreme Court refused even to rule whether the mediation issues applied, citing procedural rules that had not been followed.
Frank Miller, the Richmond lawyer who represented Stockburger - a lawyer in the Roanoke firm of Gentry, Locke, Rakes and Moore - argued that mediation itself was not under fire and that the issue was simply whether the case that arose in 1991 had been properly settled.
The Supreme Court said it had, and "they didn't address the mediation issue because they felt it wasn't necessary," Miller said Thursday. "They didn't need to."
Horwatt could not be reached for comment Thursday.
The settlement had resulted from a 1991 lawsuit in which Snyder-Falkinham sued Stockburger and other lawyers in his firm for $10.5 million. The complaint was over soured real estate ventures that she said cost her millions in the 1980s, when Stockburger served as her lawyer. A Roanoke Circuit Court ruled in a hearing last year that the case was settled properly during earlier mediation negotiations.
Horwatt's argument was that the Circuit Court should not have admitted into last year's hearing evidence that Snyder-Falkinham had given her then-attorneys the power to speak for her during mediation, or evidence of the settlement itself. He argued that all such evidence had arisen during the mediation proceedings, which generally are confidential. He also argued that her attorneys did not have the authority to have the case dismissed once the settlement was reached.
The Supreme Court disagreed.
The court ruled that Snyder-Falkinham initially agreed to terms of the settlement and did not voice any objection until the morning that the settlement papers were to be signed.
"That was too late. By that time, the settlement was a 'done deal,''' the Supreme Court said in its ruling.
by CNB