Civil Procedure – Circuit court lost jurisdiction 21 days after final order

Where the circuit court issued a final order, and did not, within the next 21 days, enter a written order staying, vacating or otherwise modifying that order, the circuit court lost jurisdiction 21 days after the date of the final order. As such, it was ordered to vacate all subsequent orders.

Background

Western Surety Company appeals the circuit court’s decision granting Kimberly Pinchbeck, the Commissioner of Accounts for the circuit court, the ability to recover her fees from fiduciary bonds that were secured by Western Surety.

Analysis

Following an April 5, 2022 hearing, the circuit court entered an order that (1) adopted Commissioner Pinchbeck’s recommendation to remove Bonnie Castro as guardian and conservator and (2) ruled that Commissioner Pinchbeck “shall recover her fees, costs and expenses, including fi[l]ing fees, private process service fees, attorney’s fees, and any other costs or expenses incurred herein, such amount to be determined at a later date.”

Thus, when the circuit court ruled on September 6 that “Bonnie Castro shall be held personally liable for any amounts due and owing to the estate of Agenor and/or Rosa Castro” and denied Commissioner Pinchbeck’s “request[] for her fees, costs and expenses to be paid from the Fiduciary Bond of Agenor Castro and/or Rosa Castro,”—but also ordered that

Commissioner Pinchbeck could not recover those fees from Western Surety—the only thing left for the circuit court to do was to determine the exact amount of costs and fees that Pinchbeck could recover from Bonnie Castro.

Therefore, because “[t]he filing of ancillary motions for the recovery of costs . . . does not suddenly transform an otherwise final order into a nonfinal order,” the circuit court’s Sept. 6, 2024, order was final. Thus, the circuit court lost jurisdiction when it issued all of its subsequent orders to the Sept. 6, 2024, order in this matter—each of which was entered after Sept. 27, 2024.

Indeed, both Commissioner Pinchbeck and the circuit court treated the September 6 order as if it were final in the days after the circuit court entered that order. Shortly after she received a copy of the September 6 order, Commissioner Pinchbeck filed a motion for reconsideration of the September 6 order and a “Motion to Suspend Finality of Order Dated September 6, 2024.” Commissioner Pinchbeck’s motion explained that she would have “virtually no time for the notation of an appeal” if the circuit court were to deny her motion for reconsideration of the September 6 order.

At the Sept. 24, 2024, hearing where the circuit court considered Commissioner Pinchbeck’s motion, the circuit court stated that “[t]he only thing at this point I can do is suspend my order pending consideration of the motion to reconsider” because the circuit court only had until Sept. 27, 2024, to amend the September 6 order.

Then, in its Oct. 1, 2024, order, the circuit court actually explained that it “made its ruling vacating the September 6, 2024 Order on September 24, 2024 to avoid losing jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 1:1 of the Rules of the Supreme Court of Virginia.” It would not have lost jurisdiction if the Sept. 6, 2024, order had not been a final order, including in the circuit court’s mind as well.

Because the September 6 order was a final order and because the circuit court did not subsequently, within the next 21 days, enter a written order staying, vacating or otherwise modifying that order, the circuit court lost jurisdiction over this matter on Sept. 27, 2024. The fact that the circuit court may have intended to stay the September 6 order is of no consequence if it did not enter a written order doing so within the 21 days before it lost jurisdiction under Rule 1:1.

This court therefore remands this matter to the circuit court for it to re-enter the Sept. 6, 2024, order in this matter and to vacate all the orders it entered in this matter after Sept. 27, 2024, including the Dec. 13, 2024, order, from which Western

Surety appealed.

Remanded and vacated.

Western Surety Company v. Kimberly Pinchbeck, Commissioner of Accounts, Circuit Court, City of Richmond, Record No. 0071-25-2, July 14, 2026. CAV (unpublished opinion) (Beales). From the Circuit Court of the City of Richmond (McClenney). Richard T. Pledger (Wright, Constable & Skeen, LLP, on briefs), for appellant. Flora T. Hezel, Senior Assistant Attorney General (Jason S. Miyares,1 Attorney General; Steven G. Popps, Chief Deputy Attorney General; Leslie A.T. Haley, Deputy Attorney General, on brief), for appellee. Amicus Curiae: Virginia Conference of Commissioners of Accounts (John K. Cottrell; Cottrell Fletcher & Cottrell PC, on brief), for appellee. VLW 026-7-290. 11 pp.

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