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S.S. v. S.S.
Massachusetts Appeals Court · 2024-08-27
This case involved a divorce between two highly educated parties married in India, with one child, where the Probate and Family Court judge deviated from the statutory presumptive durational limit on alimony under G.L. c. 208, § 49(b) and ordered the husband to pay alimony potentially for the rest of the wife's life based on her mental health condition and resulting inability to work. The Appeals Court vacated only the portion of the judgment concerning the duration of alimony, ruling that the wife had not met her burden of showing the condition was reasonably likely to persist beyond the presumptive termination date, as the evidence from evaluations and stipulations indicated ongoing diagnostic uncertainty and no clear long-term prognosis. The court affirmed the remainder of the judgment, including the amounts of alimony and child support as well as the division of the marital estate, finding no error in those aspects. The matter was remanded for entry of a judgment applying the statutory termination date, without prejudice to a future modification request.
family law
Diamond v. Pappathanasi
Massachusetts Appeals Court · 2010-10-15 · cited 13×
This case centered on an intrafamily dispute over ownership, control, and management of Scangas Realty Associates (SRA), a general partnership formed in 1973 by four siblings to hold family real estate interests, along with related entities. The plaintiff, daughter of one founding member and herself a partner, brought derivative and direct claims against three cousins who controlled day-to-day operations, alleging misdeeds that caused harm. Following a seven-day jury-waived trial, the judge awarded the plaintiff partial relief by ordering the primary defendants to reimburse SRA and a related entity over $400,000 plus interest, while upholding the existing partnership interests and certain agreement amendments, and dismissing the remaining claims including the request for an accounting. On appeal, the plaintiff sought additional remedies based on the findings, while the defendants challenged the damages on jurisdictional and substantive grounds; the Appeals Court affirmed the amended judgment in full. The core reasoning rested on acceptance of the trial judge's factual findings as supporting the limited relief granted without warranting further changes or reversal.
business & regulatoryfamily lawproperty
Rivera v. Club Caravan, Inc.
Massachusetts Appeals Court · 2010-06-11 · cited 7×
This case involved negligence claims by a state trooper and a motorist injured when a drunk driver crashed into a parked police cruiser after being served fourteen drinks at the Club Caravan bar. A Superior Court jury found the bar's owners and operators liable and awarded nearly five million dollars in damages, while the judge in a separate proceeding voided transfers of the business and real estate as fraudulent conveyances to permit the plaintiffs to reach those assets. On appeal, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part, upholding the dram shop negligence liability based on circumstantial evidence that the driver displayed outward signs of intoxication when served his last drink, but reversing certain applications of corporate veil piercing and liability findings against specific entities such as the realty trust due to lack of evidence supporting those theories.
torts & liabilitybusiness & regulatory
Commonwealth v. Wallace
Massachusetts Appeals Court · 2010-03-04 · cited 15×
The case concerned the defendant's convictions after a jury trial for rape of a child and rape involving the same victim, Thomas, whom the defendant met as a child through newspaper deliveries and later sexually assaulted repeatedly starting around age eleven. The assaults followed a pattern involving the defendant providing alcohol, isolating the victim, and using physical positioning and the victim's fear, continuing after the victim turned sixteen until the victim resisted at around age eighteen. The court affirmed the convictions, finding sufficient evidence to support both charges, including the first complaint testimony and proof of constructive force for the post-sixteen rape, and rejecting the defendant's limited challenges to the statutory rape count. However, it remanded for resentencing due to ambiguity in the trial judge's explanation of the imposed sentence of ten to twelve years in prison followed by probation.
criminal lawprocedure
Soederberg v. Concord Greene Condominium Association
Massachusetts Appeals Court · 2010-02-25 · cited 14×
The case involved a condominium resident who fell and was seriously injured on frozen slush in a walkway area of her complex and sued the condominium association for negligence in failing to remedy the hazard. At trial, the jury found that the accumulation was unnatural, that its dangerous nature was open and obvious, and that the plaintiff had a reasonable alternative to traversing it; based on those findings, the judge entered judgment for the association without reaching questions of negligence or comparative fault. On appeal, the court reversed, concluding that the open and obvious danger rule applies to the plaintiff's comparative negligence rather than relieving the owner of its underlying duty of reasonable care to address hazards on the premises, and remanded for a new trial on the remaining issues.
torts & liabilityproperty