HARRISBURG – The Superior Court of Pennsylvania has stricken a $1.37 million award of attorney’s fees determined by a Delaware County trial court in a $34,000 contract dispute case, finding that the clerk who entered the award did not have the legal authority to do so.
Superior Court judges Anne E. Lazarus, Alice Beck Dubow and Dan Pellegrini issued the ruling on Nov. 12, in the case brought by H&H Manufacturing Company, Inc., and Vincent Tomei versus Thomas R. Tomei, Jeanette M. Tomei and James F. Flandreau, Esq. (Executor Ad Litem for the Estate of Marie L. Tomei).
The case results from a family conflict over the ownership of H&H Manufacturing Co., Inc. beginning eight years ago, as Pellegrini explained in writing for the Superior Court.
“Appellant Vincent Tomei is the father of appellee Thomas R. Tomei and father-in-law of appellee Jeanette M. Tomei. Vincent Tomei is a long-time owner, director and officer of H&H and has been involved with the management of H&H since Dec. 31, 1969,” Pellegrini said.
“Vincent hired his son, Thomas, as an employee of H&H and Thomas later became the president of H&H. However, on June 3, 2013, the board of directors of H&H terminated Thomas as the president of H&H. This litigation over ownership of the company and individual claims by Thomas and Vincent ensued.”
In the Delaware County trial court, defendants Thomas and Jeanette Tomei won $34,224 for a conversion counterclaim, in addition to their prevailing on a breach of contract counterclaim for an unspecified amount.
In a follow-up praecipe for judgment, the defendants submitted an affidavit of $1.37 million in attorney’s fees and costs pertaining to the breach of contract counterclaim, but did not illustrate exactly what those costs entailed.
However, the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas’s prothonotary entered the judgment anyway, without the approval of the presiding trial judge.
Though plaintiffs H&H Manufacturing and Vincent Tomei attempted to strike the large attorney’s fee award, the litigants then brought the issue to the Superior Court for its examination of an alleged “defect on the face of the record.”
“H&H and Vincent argue that the trial court erred as a matter of law and abused its discretion by denying their motion to strike the judgment as void ab initio,” Pellegrini said.
“They posit that the judgment was void ab initio where the prothonotary exceeded its limited ministerial authority in entering the fees award on praecipe where ‘there was no basis in law or fact for the award of attorneys’ fees, no decision or finding by the trial court for sum certain of fees, no post-trial petition for fees and no hearing on the issue of entitlement to fees or the reasonableness of the fee request.”
Pellegrini noted that according to Supreme Court of Pennsylvania precedent, an unauthorized judgment from a prothonotary may be voided at any time and found that the Delaware County prothonotary in question did in fact exceed their legal authority when they approved the $1.37 million attorney’s fee award.
“When the prothonotary entered a judgment $34,224.58, plus $1,373,524.49 in attorneys’ fees and costs that was not previously rendered by the trial court, it was based solely on the affidavit of Thomas and Jeanette’s counsel. This was outside the bounds of the prothonotary’s authority, and the resulting void ab initio judgment must be stricken,” Pellegrini concluded.
“Hence, we vacate the judgment and remand this case to the trial court for a hearing to determine the reasonableness, accuracy and appropriateness of the fees and costs to make a specific finding as to amount of fees and costs that should be awarded under the rules.”
Superior Court of Pennsylvania case 1982 EDA 2020
Delaware County Court of Common Pleas case CV-2013-005775
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com