Boston Business Litigation Blog

The Massachusetts Wage Act allows an employee to recover "wages" that have been "unreasonably retained" by an employer.  A salary is within the scope of the statute.  What else is considered "wages"?  It's not clear because the term "wages" is not defined.  The statute simply provides that the term "wages" includes holiday and vacation time but such enumeration is not exhaustive.  Courts have interpreted the term "wages" to mean wages that have been "earned," as opposed to wages that are contingent on some other fact or are discretionary.  For example, accumulated sick days are not "wages" because they are contingent on a specific fact, i.e. the employee being sick.  The same is true for bonuses since they are paid at the discretion of the employer.  Commissions, however, are generally considered "wages" if they are not discretionary and are the result of the employee's work, provided that the amount of the commission is definitely determined and due and payable. 

Different states have different rules regarding when a parent's child support obligation ends. In some states, a parent's child support obligation ends when a child turns 18 years old. In Massachusetts, a parent's child support obligation generally lasts at least until the child reaches age 18, but could continue until when the child turns 21 if the child is living with a parent and dependent upon that parent, or up until the child turns 23 if the child principally lives with a parent and is dependent upon that parent due to the child's enrollment in an educational program (excluding educational costs beyond an undergraduate degree). See M.G.L. ch. 208, §28. 

In the recent case of Capron v. Office of Attorney Gen. of Mass., the federal First Circuit Court of Appeals issued an interesting ruling regarding the intersection of federal and state law, affirming a U.S. District Court order of dismissal providing that state wage and hour laws fully applied to foreign nationals employed as "au pairs" in Massachusetts on special visa programs promulgated by the U.S. State Department. 

The United States Supreme Court has agreed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, and resolved a circuit split with the Fourth and Ninth Circuits, holding that the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, 15 U.S.C. §§ 1692, et seq. ("FDCPA") does not incorporate the discovery rule into its statute of limitations. Rotkiske v. Klemm, et al. 

The Massachusetts Appeals Court recently issued an opinion in Ferguson v. Maxim, finding that the parties' offer agreement to purchase a property was enforceable even though the parties failed to timely execute the purchase and sale agreement (which, Defendants had argued, was a term of the offer), and the deadline to execute the purchase and sale agreement could be waived by the parties.

In Ferguson, the Plaintiff alleged that he and the Defendants had a binding agreement for the sale of the Defendants' property in Leominster. The parties executed a "Contract to Purchase Real Estate," which self-identified as a "Binding Contract" and identified the property, the purchase price and deposit terms, and the time and place of closing, and set a deadline by which the parties were to execute a purchase and sale agreement (P&S).

Through counsel, the parties began to negotiate the terms of the P&S but the first draft of the P&S was not circulated until after the deadline to execute the P&S had passed, and negotiations continued thereafter. At different times, counsel for both parties suggested extending the P&S deadline, but the record did not indicate that any extensions were ever granted or denied. At one point, counsel for the Defendants' attempted to cease negotiations on the grounds that the P&S deadline had passed, before later reviving negotiations for another week, and then once again terminating negotiations. Shortly thereafter, the Defendants sold the property to a third party.

Recently in Malachi M. v. Quintina Q., the SJC held that:

[P]ursuant to G.L. c. 208, § 31A, the judge at a modification proceeding must consider evidence of both past and present abuse, including evidence of domestic abuse that occurred prior to the entry of the divorce judgment, and must address the applicability of the rebuttable presumption, even in the absence of evidence of abuse occurring after the divorce judgment.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit's decision in U.S. v. Blaszczak may have just changed the landscape for insider trading prosecutions. In order to prove an insider trading charge under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the "Exchange Act"), the government has to prove that an insider received some "personal benefit" from exchanging material, non-public information. This requirement comes from the 1983 U.S Supreme Court ruling in Dirks v. SEC. 

Divorce litigants in Massachusetts may not clearly understand the distinction between those provisions in a Separation Agreement regarding child support and those provisions regarding the payment of the child(ren)'s expenses. Both types of provisions are merged into the Judgment of Divorce, meaning that the court can modify them in appropriate cases. Generally speaking, the standard for modifying a child support order is that there must be "an inconsistency between the amount of the existing order and the amount that would result from the application of the Massachusetts child support guidelines." M. G. L. c. 208, § 28. In contrast, the standard for modifying any provisions about payment of a child's expenses is that there must have been a "material change in circumstances" since the entry of the judgment that is being modified. 

In the recent case of Suzuki v. Abiomed, Inc., the First Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a U.S. District Court order granting summary judgment to the defendant employer, holding that the company's termination of an employee approximately fifteen months prior to the achievement of an important milestone, which would have entitled the employee to a large equity grant, did not violate the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing in his employment contract. 

When foreign companies do business with Chinese companies, international arbitration can be a key tool for dispute resolution, as it avoids either having a foreign court judgment that is unenforceable in China or having to deal with Chinese courts and home-court advantage for the Chinese company. Chinese courts have a good track record of enforcing international arbitral awards under the New York Convention. 

Earlier this year, the Massachusetts Appeals Court issued an important decision in Chamberlain v. Badaoui reversing a Superior Court judgment and holding that a condominium's master deed did not create an express easement granting to Plaintiffs' unit access through the neighboring Defendant's unit to the fire escape stairs. The Court further held that the Plaintiffs had failed to establish an easement by necessity.

In Motsis v. Ming's Supermarket, Inc., (Mass. App. Ct. Nov. 5, 2019), the Appeals Court affirms a judgment awarding a commercial tenant both monetary relief and specific performance.

A few short months ago, I wrote a blog post about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau surviving an attack on its constitutionality in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In that case, the plaintiff alleged that the CFPB's structure was unconstitutional because it had a single director who did not serve at the pleasure of the President. The CFPB argued that its structure was, in fact, constitutional, and it won the argument. The plaintiff sought to have the case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Your U.S. company and a commercial partner from a foreign nation had the foresight to designate international arbitration as the dispute resolution mechanism in your joint venture agreement. A dispute arose and you both diligently presented your claims to the arbitral panel. The arbitral panel has issued its award. What now?

One of the most contentious issues arising in divorce proceedings will often be the division of the parties' assets. In Massachusetts, the courts follow an equitable system of division, meaning they seek to divide property "fairly," not necessarily "equally." There are cases in which the marital estate seems to have been reduced by the irresponsible or intentional conduct of one party (party A), which ostensibly has the result of diminishing the eventual share of the marital estate that each party will retain.

A recent Massachusetts Superior Court case, Germinara v. Bakis, et al. (decided May 13, 2019), involved a plaintiff borrower who obtained a commercial loan in order to fund the purchase and operation of a gas station/convenience store, which was owned by an LLC formed by the plaintiff. The loan was secured by both the gas station property and contents and a second property that was owned by the borrower in trust. Further, the lender and the funder of the loan were granted mortgages and deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure to secure the interest on both properties owned by the borrower. When the plaintiff defaulted on the loan, the lender and the funder took title to the two properties by exercising the deeds-in-lieu of foreclosure. They sold both properties and, additionally, seized some items of the borrower's personal property that had been located at the properties, such as trucks and vehicles. Some of these items were owned by the plaintiff in his individual capacity, and not by the LLC that held title to the gas station; however, the lender held other security obligations which included the vehicles.

International arbitration has many benefits for banking and finance disputes, and parties to those disputes are increasingly recognizing those advantages. While banks and financial institutions have traditionally used courts and other judicial forums to resolve disputes, including international disputes, increasing numbers of cases are being litigated and resolved through international arbitration.

In a recent case, Macri v. Macri, the Massachusetts Appeals Court recently cemented a trial court decision to, among other things, attribute income to Husband, who was unemployed at the time of trial. Attribution of income is often a contested topic in the Probate and Family Courts of Massachusetts, and this case provides further guidance on the issue.

In a recent summary decision, Casey v. Sweeney, a panel of the Massachusetts Appeals Court reaffirmed that a payor's alimony obligation determined prior to the enactment of the Alimony Reform Act in March 2012 cannot be modified without a showing of a material change in circumstances (i.e., a material change affecting either the recipient's need or the payor's ability to pay.

In most commercial lending transactions, it is a common practice for lenders to secure the loan with a mortgage on the business property, which would permit the lender to foreclose on the mortgage securing the property if the borrower were to default on the. For closely held businesses, many lenders also require the business owners to secure the loan with a personal guaranty. A guaranty is an agreement made by a third party to secure the debt of a borrower to a lender in the event that the borrower defaults on the loan.

In Foisie v. Worcester Polytechnic, Institute (September 30, 2019), the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts allowed a Motion to Dismiss where a former wife brought claims of fraudulent transfer and/or constructive fraudulent transfer against Worcester Polytechnic Institute ("WPI") located in Massachusetts under Connecticut law. The former wife alleged that the assets donated to WPI by her former husband were hidden from her during their divorce, and that the donation was intended to defraud her.

It is the unfortunate case that, in many divorces, the marital home is sold as part of the divorce proceedings. Sometimes, the decision is made for non-financial issues - the house is tied to too many memories and both parties decide that they are better off starting anew. More often than not, however, the financial circumstances are such that the house is simply unaffordable. Perhaps the party who wants to stay will no longer be able to afford the carrying costs; an unfortunate corollary of most divorces is that oftentimes one income or even two are insufficient to maintain two different households. Whatever the reason, often by agreement and sometimes by court order, the marital home is just ordered to be sold either during or after the divorce.

In a recent unpublished decision, Bakhtiar v. Infineon Technologies Americas Corp., the Superior Court in Worcester County (Yarashus, J.) found that an employee could establish a prima facie case of retaliation under Massachusetts law (G.L.c. 151B, § 1) even though eight months passed between his complaint of discriminatory treatment by his supervisor and his termination.

In Massachusetts, the amount of weekly child support to be paid by a parent is calculated by relying on the Massachusetts Child Support Guidelines, which are published by the Executive Office of the Massachusetts Trial Court and updated every three years. Although it is a simple proposition to say that child support orders are largely based on the parents' respective incomes, it is important to understand what is included as "income" by the Probate and Family Court in determining a child support obligation.  The Guidelines themselves take the broadest possible approach to defining income, stating that "income is defined as gross income from whatever source, regardless of whether that income is recognized by the Internal Revenue Code or reported to the Internal Revenue Service or state Department of Revenue or other taxing authority."  The Guidelines go on to list 29 different types of income which are presumptively included in a parent's income for child support purposes, including, among other items, salaries, wages, overtime, tips, commissions, severance pay, royalties, interest and dividends, bonuses, certain government benefits, workers' compensation, distributions from trusts, pension and annuity income, capital gains, lottery or gambling winnings, prizes and awards, and rental income.

In Sullivan v. Sleepy's LLC, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) answered this question in the affirmative. In Sullivan, the SJC considered whether an employer satisfied its obligations to its employees under Massachusetts Overtime and Sunday wage laws, where its employees' wages were comprised entirely of commission (or draws against commission), if their total weekly income met or exceeded one and a half times their regular hourly rate or at least one and a half times the minimum wage for each hour they worked over forty. The Court concluded that those employees were entitled to a separate payment - in addition to their draws or commissions - of one and a half times their regular rate or at least one and a half times minimum wage for every hour they worked over forty. With regard to Sunday pay, the SJC affirmed that a plain reading of that statute requires a separate and distinct time and a half payment for hours worked on a Sunday pay even when an employee received commission payments in the first instance that equaled or exceeded what the employee would be entitled to per the Sunday pay statute.

Technology transfer is a critical way for innovation companies to enter into new markets and profit from the hard work that they have done in developing new technology. These agreements can take many forms, from an assignment of the intellectual property rights to a licensing agreement, to a joint venture. And unlike the sale of physical assets, with the sale or licensing of IP, there are numerous complicated issues involving exactly what is being transferred, adaptations or further development of the technology, and competition between the technology owner and the transferee.

During the heady moments when reaching a deal, everyone always seems on the same page. But months or years down the road, disputes can often arise, particularly where there are substantial royalty payments in the balance.

Pursuant to 2018 Session Laws Chapter 155, Section 2 (An Act Relative to Reproductive Health), Massachusetts's outdated law criminalizing adultery was repealed. The Governor approved the law on July 27, 2018.

2018 Session Laws Chapter 155, Section 2 specifically repealed Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 272, Section 14 (Adultery), which read:

This issue arose in the recent Massachusetts Appellate case Salem Five Mortgage Company, LLC v. Lester. In that case, a mortgage company lent a borrower $300,000 for the purchase of a home on Nantucket. After the mortgage company approved the loan, but before the closing date, the borrower requested that his wife be added to the deed as a tenant by the entirety. However, the wife's name was not added to the mortgage, which remained solely in the name of the borrower. As a result, the mortgage company received a security interest only in the borrower's undivided interest in the property. The closing attorney, who represented both the mortgage company and the borrower, was aware of way in which the title was worded and told the seller of the property that the borrower and his wife would take title as tenants by the entirety. The mortgage eventually went into default, at which time the mortgage company discovered the mistake and sued for reformation of either the deed or the mortgage.

If a divorce or 209C case is pending, the court, sooner or later, will schedule what is known as a pre-trial hearing. Sometimes this is also referred to as a pre-trial conference. This will happen either on the court's own initiative once a complaint has been on file long enough, or following a case management conference. At a case management conference, the parties and judge will address a timeline for the case - the appropriate timeline for a discovery deadline and a pre-trial hearing, among other matters. The parties can, by stipulation, avoid appearing at a pre-trial hearing by submitting a written agreement that specifies the specific dates for the case timeline.

In Thompson v. JPMorgan Chase Bank (1st Cir. 2019), the First Circuit reversed the District Court's dismissal of the borrowers' claims against the mortgagee, finding that the notice of default did not strictly comply with the terms of the mortgage and Massachusetts law.