Judith Cathy Arnold Cowin

This case concerned contractors and subcontractors who performed renovations on leased property but were not paid, leading them to file mechanic's liens under G.L. c. 254 on both the tenant's leasehold interest and the owner's fee interest. The trial judge upheld liens against the leasehold but rejected claims against the fee; on appeal, the court reversed in part. The court held that the contractors established valid liens on the owner's fee interest because the lease demonstrated the owner's consent to the work, but the subcontractors did not qualify for such liens. Any liens on the leasehold interest terminated upon the tenant's surrender of the premises to the owner.

propertybusiness & regulatory

This case concerns Samuel J. Lieberman's efforts to obtain documents produced by Fremont Investment & Loan in an Attorney General enforcement action alleging unfair mortgage lending practices, where those documents were subject to a protective order. Lieberman filed a separate action under the public records law seeking access and also moved to intervene in the original enforcement action. The court affirmed the dismissal of the public records action on the grounds that the statute does not override judicial authority to issue protective orders or address separation-of-powers concerns. It vacated the denial of the intervention motion and remanded for further proceedings, noting that the public records law lacks explicit provisions addressing protective orders and that courts retain traditional control over litigation materials.

procedurebusiness & regulatory

This case concerns the ownership of a federal tax refund from a joint return filed by spouses, where only the husband earned income, in the context of the husband's chapter 7 bankruptcy. The trustee claimed the full refund for the estate, while the wife asserted an interest in it. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, answering certified questions, held that the wife has a property interest in the refund if she would have been entitled to one on separate returns, with the extent determined by her contributions (payments or credits) and her hypothetical separate tax liability. The court rejected approaches like equal division or pure income attribution, instead applying a separate-filings rule adjusted for actual contributions to the payments that generated the refund.

taxespropertyfamily law

The case involved the conviction of the defendant for first-degree murder on a theory of deliberate premeditation after he shot his cousin, a rival in the drug trade, following threats and an altercation. The defendant appealed his conviction and the denial of his motion for a new trial, arguing that hearsay statements were improperly admitted, the prosecutor engaged in improper cross-examination and closing argument, his waiver of the right to testify was invalid, and his counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to impeach a witness or object to arguments. The court affirmed the conviction and the denial of the new trial motion after reviewing the record. It reasoned that the statements at issue were not hearsay or were cumulative of other evidence, the prosecutor's conduct was proper, the waiver was valid with no indication of dispute, counsel's performance met standards, and there was no basis to exercise the court's power under G. L. c. 278, § 33E to reduce the verdict.

criminal lawprocedure

In this case, the defendant was convicted in 2005 of second-degree murder based on the 1985 death of her twenty-one-month-old daughter from blunt force abdominal trauma that led to organ failure. The defendant appealed, arguing among other things that the evidence was insufficient to prove malice. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, after reviewing the facts in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, concluded that the evidence did not support a finding of malice under any of its prongs because the defendant could not have known of a plain and strong likelihood of death from the victim's symptoms. The court therefore reversed the conviction without addressing the other appellate issues raised.

criminal law

In Commonwealth v. Carnes, the defendant was convicted in Superior Court of four counts of first-degree murder (on theories of deliberate premeditation and felony-murder), three counts of armed robbery, and related firearms and larceny offenses arising from the December 2005 shooting deaths of four men in a Dorchester basement. On appeal, the defendant challenged the denial of motions to suppress his statements, the sufficiency of evidence for joint-venture instructions on the robbery and firearms charges, the admission of telephone-record summary charts, and the handling of jury deliberations (including dismissal of a deliberating juror, refusal to declare deliberations "due and thorough," and failure to inquire into alleged juror misconduct or declare a mistrial). The Supreme Judicial Court rejected each claim, affirmed the convictions after plenary review under G. L. c. 278, § 33E, and concluded that the trial record presented no error warranting relief.

criminal lawprocedure

This case involves the Board of Registration in Medicine's attempt to enforce a subpoena for the patient records of psychiatrist John Doe as part of an investigation into his treatment practices, particularly in pain management. Doe refused to comply, claiming the records were protected by the psychotherapist-patient privilege under Massachusetts law. The court determined that Doe qualifies as a psychotherapist because pain management is a subspecialty of psychiatry, satisfying the statutory requirement of devoting substantial time to psychiatry. Additionally, the court ruled that the privilege statute does not allow for balancing the board's public safety interests against the confidentiality protected by the privilege. As a result, the court vacated the order to produce the records and remanded for an order quashing the subpoena.

healthcareprocedure

The case involved Onex Communications Corporation seeking an abatement of use tax on equipment purchased for developing a telecommunications switching chip set between 1999 and 2001. The Appellate Tax Board determined that Onex qualified as a manufacturing corporation under Massachusetts law, entitling it to the tax exemption for items used in research and development by such a corporation. The Commissioner of Revenue appealed, arguing that Onex was engaged only in development, not manufacturing, at the time of the purchases. The court affirmed the board's decision, reasoning that Onex's activities, including creating production blueprints and producing sample chips that led directly to commercial production, constituted manufacturing.

taxesbusiness & regulatory

The case concerned whether Bulldog Investors violated the Massachusetts Uniform Securities Act by operating a website and sending emails offering unregistered hedge fund securities to a Massachusetts resident who had registered on the site. The court affirmed the administrative decision imposing a cease-and-desist order and fine, ruling that the Secretary had personal jurisdiction over the plaintiffs under the long-arm statute because their solicitation constituted sufficient contacts with the Commonwealth and was consistent with due process. It further held that the plaintiffs' First Amendment claim was not properly before the court in this administrative review proceeding because they had pursued it separately under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The core reasoning was that the Act defines an "offer" more broadly than common law to include any "solicitation of an offer," so the detailed performance and strategy materials sent to the resident qualified as a prohibited unregistered solicitation.

business & regulatoryfree speechprocedure

In Commonwealth v. Williams, the defendant was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder on a theory of deliberate premeditation, along with assault with intent to murder, assault with a dangerous weapon, and unlawful firearm possession, stemming from a 2005 shooting death in Medford during an alleged gun sale. The defendant appealed, arguing that his statements to police should have been suppressed due to improper Miranda waivers and involuntariness, that the trial court made evidentiary errors by admitting a MySpace message and a firearm, that his confrontation rights were violated, that the judge was biased, that counsel was ineffective, and that certain sentences exceeded statutory limits. The court affirmed the convictions, finding that Miranda warnings were properly administered and understood, statements were voluntary, evidence was admissible, no constitutional violations occurred, and counsel was effective, but it vacated the assault sentences as exceeding maximum penalties and remanded for resentencing.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned the death of a nursing home resident who fell down stairs after exiting the facility unattended in her wheelchair, due to the absence of a required security bracelet whose monitoring order had been omitted from treatment records through various employees' errors. The corporation operating the facility was indicted for involuntary manslaughter and neglect of a long-term care resident, with prosecutors seeking to prove liability by combining the knowledge and acts of multiple staff members even though no single employee was criminally responsible. The trial judge reported questions asking whether corporate guilt for these offenses could rest on such a theory of aggregation. The court answered both questions in the negative, reasoning that Massachusetts law does not permit corporate criminal liability based solely on collective employee conduct without at least one individual employee being criminally liable.

criminal lawbusiness & regulatory

The case involved a dispute over whether the University of Massachusetts Lowell's agreement with Brasi Development Corp. for the development and long-term lease of student dormitory facilities was required to follow the state's competitive public bidding statute. The Superior Court ruled that the statute did not apply, as the agreement was structured as a lease of a completed facility rather than a construction contract by the university. The Supreme Judicial Court reversed this decision, holding that the agreement was subject to the bidding requirements because the university provided detailed specifications for the facility and retained significant control over the construction process, making it effectively a public construction project despite the lease form and risk allocation to the developer.

business & regulatory

In this interlocutory appeal, the case concerned whether statements made by the defendant during police questioning should be suppressed for lack of Miranda warnings, and whether statements from the victim's 911 call were admissible as nontestimonial hearsay. The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held that the presence of counsel during questioning, after the suspect had an opportunity to consult with the attorney, adequately substitutes for Miranda warnings and affirmed the denial of the motion to suppress. The court also determined that most statements in the 911 call were made to obtain urgent medical attention and thus nontestimonial, affirming their admissibility, while ordering redaction of certain responses to dispatcher inquiries that were testimonial. The reasoning centered on the protections afforded by counsel's involvement ensuring a knowing waiver and on the primary purpose of the 911 statements under confrontation clause analysis.

criminal lawprocedure

The case concerned whether claims against physicians and their medical group for negligently failing to warn a patient about medication side effects impairing her driving ability—resulting in a fatal car crash injuring a third party—must be screened by a medical malpractice tribunal under G.L. c. 231, § 60B. The court affirmed the Superior Court’s order convening such a tribunal, holding that the claims were subject to the statute. It reasoned that the allegations involved treatment-related medical judgment about warnings for prescribed medications and patient conditions, falling within the broad category of "all treatment-related claims" covered by the tribunal requirement even absent a direct doctor-patient relationship with the plaintiff. The decision aligned with precedent treating failure-to-warn claims as malpractice matters and the statute’s goal of screening frivolous claims to control insurance costs.

healthcaretorts & liability

The case involved the defendant's jury convictions for first-degree murder on a felony-murder theory with armed robbery as the predicate felony, as well as a separate armed robbery conviction, arising from the shooting death of a convenience store owner during a robbery of bank deposits in Roxbury. Represented by new counsel on appeal, the defendant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence for joint venture liability, the prosecutor's closing argument, the denial of a Bowden instruction on police work, an alleged variance between grand jury and trial evidence, compliance with jury deliberation statutes, and the handling of a post-verdict juror letter alleging pressure. The court rejected all claims of error, affirmed the murder conviction after reviewing the circumstantial evidence in the light most favorable to the Commonwealth, and exercised its discretion under G.L. c. 278, § 33E to decline further relief, while vacating the duplicative armed robbery conviction.

criminal lawprocedure