The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled today that the state can decide whether to force the owners of condos at Commercial Wharf to abandon the wharf space they now use for parking, because they never received a formal state license to use the waterfront land for stowing cars. Read more.
A School Committee lawyer argued today that leaving out the "Westie whites" exchange from text messages handed over to the Globe and a woman who turned out to be a secret member of the parents group suing over exam-school admissions was an innocent mistake, not part of some nefarious scheme to hide racial hatred by School Committee members. Read more.
A man who sued Marty Walsh, Charlie Baker and William Evans because he couldn't find his way to the Parkman Bandstand for what turned out to be a tiny post-Charlottesville rantfest through the far larger throngs of protesters that surrounded the platform in 2017 had his First Amendment and conspiracy case tossed by a federal judge today. Read more.
A Pawtucket, RI man who claims that as a Moor he is exempt from American law is suing the state over what he alleges is his false imprisonment after failing to show his license to a police officer who asked him why he was stopped on the side of Rte. 3 north of Boston one February night. Read more.
A federal judge today brusquely dismissed a request by a BPS lawyer for more time to argue why he shouldn't re-open the exam-school case, because the parents in the case have raised serious legal questions he needs answers to now, or more specifically, by this coming Tuesday, the date he had originally set for her to respond to the parent group's request. Read more.
Update: Settlement reached.
Three Jamaica Plain residents and a frequent visitor to Boston yesterday filed a federal lawsuit against the city, alleging the state of handicap ramps in the city is so poor they often have difficulty getting around the city, in violation of the federal Americans with Disability Act. Read more.
,em>Update: Case settled./em>
Secret Boston, LLC, which has long organized and promoted events in Boston, today sued some New York concern, accusing it of trying to muscle in on their act by using the name Secret Boston. Read more.
Boston is suing a Rhode Island man it says bought a federally and city-funded "affordable" Roxbury condo in 2012 but is now renting it out, in violation of a deed restriction that requires the unit only be owned and occupied by Boston residents. Read more.
A developer putting up an apartment building and a condo building off Soldiers Field Road in Brighton, which were granted several zoning variances in 2018, today sued the Zoning Board of Appeal for granting several zoning variances earlier this year for an apartment building that would go next door. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled today that blackjack players who won at the cheap tables at the Encore and MGM Springfield casinos, then sued to get the higher winnings they would have gotten at higher-stakes tables, should have quit while they were ahead. Read more.
The group representing mainly West Roxbury parents that sought to put the exam back in exam schools for the coming school year is asking a federal judge to reopen its case because of "clear racial motivation and anti-White racism" on the part of two School Committee members in text messages exchanged over the course of a nine-hour meeting on what to do about the Covid-19-forced cancellation of exams. Read more.
Women from Boston and Peabody say they never would have bought Thinx period underwear - or would have paid far less for it - if they had known it contained silver nano-particles and a possibly harmful class of chemicals known as PFAS, rather than being the 100% organic, safe alternative to tampons the company advertised it as. Read more.
Cambridge PD Lt. Thomas Ahern says only a well placed cell phone prevented serious injury when his gun discharged on its own as he sat in a SWAT van during the 2019 MayFair festivities. He's suing gun maker Sig Sauer for selling what he claims is a defective device and his own city for what he says is punishment for objecting to its bulk purchase of the guns over his objections. Read more.
A judge today dismissed a federal civil-rights charges by a Black attorney against the MBTA and Transit Police officers who arrested him on the word of a woman who turned out to be lying because "qualified immunity" means they are protected in a case where they made a mistake - even one that cost him his job and sent him to the hospital with a pinched nerve from the handcuffs. Read more.
Bodycam video showing Huffman getting knocked down, from the complaint.
Four people who took part in a George Floyd vigil on Boston Common last May 31 have sued BPD and three specific officers for allegedly attacking them with batons and pepper spray as the rally ended and turned into several hours of looting that they say they had nothing to do with. Read more.
The Supreme Judicial Court today dismissed Somerville Mayor Joe Curtatone's lawsuit against a New York blog and one of its writers under the state wiretap law, because the guy asked if he could record a phone "interview" with Curtatone, and the wiretap law only bars "secretly" recorded conversations. Read more.
Hard to miss the JP Licks on Centre Street, thanks to the giant cow's head.
The owner of the onetime firehouse at 661 Centre St. in Jamaica Plain this week sued her ex-husband, who runs the J.P. Licks ice-cream chain based there, for some $113,000 in back rent from last year. Read more.
Update: Judge dismisses suit.
A student at New England Law says the school's policy that his attendance this fall is conditional on his showing proof of Covid-19 vaccination violates the "unconditional" scholarship he says he was awarded, so he's suing. Read more.
A federal judge today rejected a request to toss Felix Arroyo's wrongful-termination suit against the city for the way Marty Walsh fired him as chief of health and human services in 2017.
However, US District Court Judge Denise Casper did narrow his suit considerably, dismissing several of his claims. Read more.
Even as Acting Mayor Kim Janey was preparing yesterday to announce Dennis White's firing, a city attorney was filing paperwork to have his wrongful-termination suit moved from state to federal court. Read more.
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