A civil case filed by Hole in the Wall Waterfront Grill in November of 2023 against the Mathews Board of Supervisors as a whole and supervisors Dave Jones and Mike Walls individually has been scheduled for a hearing at 1:30 p.m. on Friday, March 14, in Gloucester County Circuit Court.
The hearing was requested by the legal firm representing Mathews County’s insurance company, Babcock, Moore and Lambert PLC. Attorney Tina Babcock has asked the court for a ruling on her February 2024 response to the charges in the case.
Babcock said in a brief telephone call that if the motions in her response are granted, the complainant will be allowed to file a second amended complaint to see if he can “get his allegations in order with the claim.”
The suit
In the suit, Hole in the Wall Waterfront Grill, owned by Mac Casale and Dean Tsamouras, has charged the Mathews Board of Supervisors and, specifically, Jones and Walls, with malicious prosecution and abuse of process. The plaintiffs seek $10 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 per defendant, or $1.05 million, for punitive damages, citing defendants’ “combined efforts in initiating and bringing zoning proceedings and threatening civil claims against plaintiff for spurious zoning violations.”
The suit alleges that the actions of the board of supervisors and of Jones and Walls individually “constituted a complete disregard of plaintiff’s rights, were done with actual malice, and were not based in fact.”
Also mentioned in the suit is the fact that the Mathews Board of Zoning Appeals ruled in Hole in the Wall’s favor in July 2023 regarding the charges of zoning violations. The county has appealed the BZA’s decision on the Notice of Violation to Mathews Circuit Court. That case is set to be heard at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 30, in Gloucester Circuit Court.
Response to the suit
In responding to the suit, Babcock said that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim for malicious prosecution because the suit doesn’t say that they suffered “personal arrest, property seizure or special injury” and it doesn’t allege that the defendants had instituted “a groundless civil proceeding with malicious intent” regarding the notice of violation that was issued.
The response states further that the abuse of process claim doesn’t apply because the plaintiff only claimed that the defendants “threatened potential civil and criminal proceedings” and that filing a lawsuit qualifies as a regular use of process “and cannot constitute abuse of process, even if the filing was influenced by an ulterior motive.”
Finally, Babcock’s response states that Hole in the Wall is a corporate entity and is not entitled to recover such intangible damages as loss of enjoyment of life, humiliation, mental anguish, and anxiety, and is thus not eligible for $10 million in compensatory damages.