Circuit Court Judge Jeffrey W. Shaw has ordered that Hole in the Wall Waterfront Grill participate in a settlement conference on Dec. 5 with the Mathews County Board of Supervisors and Mathews County Administrator Ramona Wilson regarding the emergency injunction the restaurant filed against the county in July.
The injunction was in response to the county’s unannounced eviction of the restaurant from county-owned property on Gwynn’s Island on July 10, and it seeks $80,000 for losses incurred during the closure of the restaurant.
According to the order, signed by Shaw on Nov. 3 and filed in Mathews Circuit Court, Timothy J. Hauler, identified as a retired judge on the 12th judicial circuit and a qualified judicial settlement conference judge, has been designated to conduct the conference. It will be held in the courts building in Colonial Heights.
The order states that each of the parties has to provide a representative, either in person or by telephone, “who shall have final authority to settle the case,” and that the court must be informed in writing immediately if the dispute is resolved.
“Irrespective of this referral,” said the order, “this case has been set for return to the court in accordance with normal docketing procedures.”
“We look forward to participating in mediation and are hopeful a fair and mutually agreeable solution can be achieved,” said Tim Doss, chairman of the Mathews Board of Supervisors. “This would be best for all of the citizens of Mathews.”
Restaurant co-owner Mac Casale had no comment.
Second case filed by Hole in the Wall
In a related matter, the Mathews County Board of Supervisors and supervisors Dave Jones and Mike Walls have asked the court to quash service of process of a suit filed against them by Hole in the Wall Waterfront Grill.
The motion states that the complaint that was served on the defendants was the wrong one, and it points out that the suit that was filed in Mathews Circuit Court on Aug. 4, designated “Exhibit A,” seeks compensatory damages of $20 million and contains three counts, while the complaint that was actually served on them, designated “Exhibit B,” seeks compensatory damages of $10 million and contains only two counts. It states a difference in verbiage, as well.
Exhibit A is consistent with a suit filed against the county in August that charges malicious prosecution, abuse of process, and a third charge that Jones and Walls “undertook in concert together to deliberately and willfully and maliciously injure the reputation, trade, and business” of the restaurant and its owners, Casale and Dean Tsamouras.
Exhibit B is consistent with a suit filed against the county and the two supervisors by the restaurant in November 2023. That suit was nonsuited in February when the board entered into negotiations with the restaurant to try to settle the differences between them. At that time, the county also dropped its suit asking that the court reverse a decision made by the Mathews Board of Zoning Appeals in favor of Hole in the Wall Waterfront Grill.