A litigant, and not his attorney, has the final say in settling cases, the 2nd U.S. Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.

Police officer Manual Gomez was an off-duty when he was arrested and detained for five days in August 2009 after several individuals attacked him, according to the ruling in Manuel Gomez v. City of New York.

Although criminal charges against him were dismissed, the New York Police Department fired him based on the incident, according to the ruling. Mr. Gomez filed suit in 2012 challenging his firing.

In early 2013 as he was about to be deployed to Afghanistan, Mr. Gomez hired Trevor A. Reid as his attorney to represent him in civil litigation against the city.

In March 2013, Mr. Reid filed an amended complaint with the U.S. District Court in New York, charging the city’s agents violated Mr. Gomez’s constitutional rights, according to the ruling. Less than a month later, Mr. Reid signed a stipulation and order of dismissal that removed substantially all of Mr. Gomez’s claims, which the lower court approved.

Five days later, Mr. Gomez asked the court to reconsider and withdraw his attorney in the matter, stating Mr. Reid’s actions were done without Mr. Gomez’s knowledge or consent, but the lower court refused.

Among the reasons provided by the lower court was that “allowing a party to evade the consequences of the acts or omissions of his freely chosen agent would be inconsistent with our system of representative litigation.”

However, in its ruling Thursday, a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit said the lower court should have held an evidentiary hearing before ruling in the matter.

“The decision to settle a case rests with the client, and although we presume that an attorney-of-record has authority to settle a case, this is a rebuttable presumption,” the appeals court panel said in its ruling.

“Here, Gomez’s motion raised a factual dispute concerning his attorney’s authority to stipulate to a dismissal of his claims. Accordingly, it was necessary to hold an evidentiary hearing to address this dispute,” the panel ruled in remanding the case for further proceedings.