Court: Family proved pretty loathsome in efforts to force elderly couple out of Back Bay condo it wanted

The Massachusetts Appeals Court today upheld a large monetary verdict against a member of the Demoulas clan, her husband and their attorney - who wound up disbarred in the long-running Demoulas family saga - over their efforts to force a Brandeis professor and his wife out of their Back Bay condo so they could convert the entire building into a single residence.

Although the court upheld the decision of the trial judge to reduce part of the initial $1.85 million verdict against Michael L. and Frances Demoulas Kettenbach and Gary Crossen, it did uphold the basic premise of the verdict: That the three conspired against the civil rights of Jerome and Bernadette Wodinsky to force them out of their fourth-floor condo at 303 Commonwealth Ave. through ludicrously expensive repairs they tried to bill the couple for and intimidation. The court noted how the Kettenbachs and Crossen had the building elevator condemned and then refused to have it repaired for ten months:

During the period when the elevator was inoperable, the Wodinskys were denied their sole practical means of reaching their fourth-floor unit. Instead, they were forced to walk up and down the stairs each time they wanted to leave or to return to their home. As to Jerome, who at the time of trial was eighty-four years of age, and Bernadette, who was sixty-eight years of age, the record amply illustrated the extreme physical and emotional burden on both of them as they struggled to ascend or to descend the eighty-six steps that separated their unit from the street. Indeed, Jerome suffered from numerous medical conditions, including diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and emphysema. Jerome's eighty-six year old brother, who required a walker to move about, was completely unable to navigate the stairs, and died in December, 2009, confined to the Wodinskys' unit.

The court continues:

The record contains ample evidence from which the jury could have reasonably concluded that Crossen and the Kettenbachs coerced, intimidated, and threatened the Wodinskys in an effort to force them out of their home. This evidence, much of which Crossen and the Kettenbachs overlooked in their brief, includes: the Kettenbachs' active attempts to condemn and decommission the building's only elevator; the excessive period of time during which the elevator was unusable, which forced the elderly Wodinskys to walk up and down four flights of stairs; Crossen and the Kettenbachs' manipulation of the board's voting process to the Wodinskys' detriment; the Kettenbachs' demand that the Wodinskys pay twenty percent of expensive, unneeded projects that were not lawfully voted upon by the board; the Kettenbachs' instituting litigation against the Wodinskys to collect such payments while simultaneously forgiving the assessments of another owner who agreed to sell her unit; and the Kettenbachs' hiring of a private investigator to visit Bernadette at her work place for the specific purpose of threatening the Wodinskys with bankruptcy