Joel Schneider

A federal magistrate judge has ordered that an oral settlement agreement between a New Jersey man and a local school district, stemming from a lawsuit the man filed claiming district officials wrongly caused child-welfare authorities to investigate him, must be enforced over his objections.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel Schneider, sitting in Camden, ruled on Dec. 22 in Vandergrift v. Pennsauken School District that oral settlement agreements are indeed enforceable, and plaintiff Thomas Vandergrift must accept $215,000 from the district to settle claims of emotional distress he filed five years ago. The settlement was reached in a telephonic conference last October.

“Unfortunately, it is not unusual for a party to attempt to back out of a settlement agreement he or she orally entered into,” Schneider wrote in his ruling. “A settlement agreement need not be reduced to writing to be binding.”

The matter involves a student in the district, identified in the decision as D.V. He has a learning disability and autism. Although he lives with his grandmother and has a guardian, B.V., Vandergrift, who is his uncle, serves as his education advocate, according to the decision.

Vandergrift and three district officials—Marty DeLape, the director of special education; Chris Lavell, D.V.'s case manager; and Holly Taylor, the district's social worker—met on Aug. 18, 2011, to discuss D.V.'s grooming habits, the court said. There also were allegations that D.V. was being bullied at school.

At that meeting, the ruling said, Vandergrift said he had gone into the shower with D.V. three times in an attempt to show him how to properly wash. After the meeting, Taylor and Lavell contacted the state Division of Youth and Family Services to report what Vandergrift had told them, and urged DYFS to launch an investigation, Schneider wrote.

DYFS later determined that nothing improper had occurred. Vandergrift, who is gay, then filed a lawsuit against the district, claiming he'd been discriminated against.

The litigation came to a head at an Oct. 19, 2017, settlement conference, as a trial date was approaching, the ruling said: Vandergrift was not present, but participated over the telephone and orally agreed to the terms of a settlement that called for, among other things, that he accept $215,000 to drop the lawsuit, and that both sides agree to not issue disparaging statements against each other.

Later, Vandergrift's counsel informed the defendants that Vandergrift had had a change of heart and would not sign a release. The district, contending that a deal had been reached, moved to enforce the settlement.

Vandergrift argued that he did not believe oral agreements were binding, that he was not bound by his attorney's statements, that he could not hear what was occurring when he called in to the Oct. 19 conference, that he was under duress at the time, and that the settlement still had to be approved by the district's board of education.

Schneider sided with the district, saying there had been a “meeting of the minds” at the Oct. 19 conference that was “crystal clear.”

“Based on all available evidence, the court finds the parties evinced a meeting of the minds and agreed on their settlement terms on Oct. 19,” Schneider said, noting that the district agreed to modify the settlement to address Vandergrift's insistence on a mutual release and his objection to dismissal of individual defendants.

Schneider rejected Vandergrift's claim that he believed the settlement was not finalized until reduced to writing. “This is just a reflection of plaintiff's 'buyer's remorse,'” the judge wrote.

Vandergrift also claimed he'd misunderstood the sum of the monetary portion of the settlement to be $250,000, not $215,000, according to the decision, which Schneider deemed “incredulous.”

“Plaintiff could unquestionably hear and understand what was going on,” Schneider wrote.

As for Board of Education approval of the settlement, that “does not prevent a binding settlement” and is “a condition subsequent that could only only divest a contract that already existed,” the judge said.

Neither Vandergrift's attorney, David Berlin of Weisberg Law in Morton, Pennsylvania, nor the district's attorney, Frank Cavallo Jr. of Parker McCay in Marlton, returned calls seeking comment.