Daveiga v. Boston Public Health Com'n

• Citation: 869 N.E.2d 586,449 Mass. 434
• Decision Date: 13 July 2007
• Docket Number: SJC-09784.
• Parties: Emanuel DAVEIGA v. BOSTON PUBLIC HEALTH COMMISSION.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

869 N.E.2d 586

449 Mass. 434

Emanuel DAVEIGA v. BOSTON PUBLIC HEALTH COMMISSION.

SJC-09784.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

Argued February 6, 2007.

Decided July 13, 2007.

John M. Townsend, General Counsel, Boston (Christine M. Hayes with him) for the defendant.

Victor G. DeSousa for the plaintiff.

Peter Sacks, Assistant Attorney General, & Martha Coakley, Attorney General, for the Attorney General, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.

Present: GREANEY, IRELAND, SPINA, COWIN, & CORDY, JJ.

COWIN, J.

Certain tort claims against the Commonwealth, its municipalities, and some other government bodies are permitted by the Massachusetts Tort Claims Act, G.L. c. 258 (the act). The act contains a requirement of presentment,¹ that is, it requires that a particular person be given written notice of a claim before initiation of suit. The sole question before us is to whom presentment must be made of a claim for tort damages against the Boston Public Health Commission (the commission). We conclude that, under G.L. c. 258, § 4, presentment on the commission must be to its executive director, and not, as the plaintiff argues, to the mayor of Boston or to the Attorney General.

Background. The facts are undisputed. On September 8, 1998, the plaintiff allegedly was injured at the Long Island Shelter, which is operated by the commission. The plaintiff made presentment of a claim for damages to the mayor of the city of Boston and to the Attorney General. The mayor did not respond to the presentment notice and the Attorney General forwarded the claim to the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, which investigated and denied the claim. The plaintiff then timely initiated a civil action against the city, but later, following notice from the city that the proper defendant was the commission, the plaintiff voluntarily dismissed the suit against the city.

The plaintiff then filed a civil action against the commission, but he did so without making presentment to any officer of the commission. Asserting defective presentment, the commission moved to dismiss. In opposing the motion, the plaintiff contended that presentment to the mayor was sufficient. A judge in the Superior Court agreed with the plaintiff and denied the motion. The commission appealed to the Appeals Court,² which reversed in an unpublished memorandum and order pursuant to its Rule 1:28. Daveiga v. Public Health Comm'n of Boston, 66 Mass.App.Ct. 1104, 845 N.E.2d 1224 (2006). The Appeals Court concluded that the act required presentment to the commission's executive director. We granted further appellate review and requested supplemental briefing on the previously unaddressed question whether the plaintiff's presentment to the Attorney General was sufficient to comply with the act.³ Like the Appeals Court, we reverse the denial of the motion to dismiss.

Relevant law. General Laws c. 258 replaced the common-law scheme by which the Commonwealth and its municipalities enjoyed immunity from suit for tortious wrongdoing, subject only to miscellaneous exceptions. See Triplett v. Oxford, 439 Mass. 720, 724, 791 N.E.2d 310 (2003), and cases cited. See also Lafayette Place Assocs. v. Boston Redevelopment Auth., 427 Mass. 509, 532, 694 N.E.2d 820 (1998), cert. denied, 525 U.S. 1177, 119 S.Ct. 1112, 143 L.Ed.2d 108 (1999). It authorized tort suits that previously had been prohibited, but established requirements and limitations for those actions.⁴ One of these requirements is that, prior to the initiation of a civil action under the act, a claimant must give written notice to a person authorized to receive the notice pursuant to the act.⁵ G.L. c. 258, § 4. The act requires that this presentment be made on the "executive officer" of the entity sued. Id. However, it provides also that, "in the case of a city or town," presentment to any of a number of municipal officials, including the mayor,⁶ is sufficient, and in the case of the Commonwealth or its constituent agencies, presentment may be made to the Attorney General.⁷ Id.

Presentment to the mayor. The plaintiff claims that the commission is merely part of the city of Boston, so that presentment to the mayor is sufficient to comply with the act. The commission contends that it is not a city agency, and thus that only presentment to the commission's executive director suffices.⁸ We reject the plaintiff's contention. We recognize that the commission resembles a city agency in some respects. Although the commission's enabling act provides that the commission is subject to the supervision of the city of Boston only as specified, St.1995, c. 147, § 3(a), the commission is significantly dependent on the city and its mayor both politically and financially. For example, the enabling act provides for the mayor to appoint six of the commission's seven board members and approve the commission's budget. Id. at §§ 3(b), 8(c). It also provides that "the commission shall have the powers and perform the duties from time to time conferred or imposed on boards of health of cities." Id. at § 6(b).

Notwithstanding these connections to the city, the commission does not have the legal status of a city agency. Dispositive in our view is the fact that the commission is organized as a "body politic and corporate and political subdivision of the [C]ommonwealth." Id. at § 3(a). This precise language appears in the enabling acts of only a select few governmental bodies, such as the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), G.L. c. 161A, § 2; the various regional transit authorities, G.L. c. 161B, § 2; the Massachusetts Municipal Wholesale Electric Company, St.1975, c. 775, § 2; the Springfield Parking Authority, St.1981, c. 674, § 3; bodies organized under the model water and sewer commission act, G.L. c. 40N, § 4; and the Boston Water and Sewer Commission, St.1977, c. 436, § 3. See Simmons v. Clerk-Magistrate of the Boston Div. of the Housing Court Dep't, 448 Mass. 57, 62-63, 858 N.E.2d 727 (2006). Nowhere is this language used to create a city department, board, or commission. By contrast, the act that created the department of health and hospitals, which was one of the commission's predecessor entities⁹ and was considered a department of the city, states: "There shall be in the city of Boston ... a department ...." St.1965, c. 656, § 1 (emphasis added). The commission's own enabling act likewise defines its predecessor as a "department of the city," St.1995, c. 147, § 2, while conspicuously lacking any similar reference to the commission itself.¹⁰ The Legislature knew well how to organize the commission as a city department similar to its predecessor, but instead chose deliberately to make it a "body politic and corporate and political subdivision of the [C]ommonwealth." In so doing, the Legislature has made the commission an entity that is legally distinct from the city of Boston. Accordingly, presentment to the mayor of Boston does not satisfy the requirements of G.L. c. 258, § 4.

Equally crucial to our determination that the commission is not part of the city for presentment purposes is the fact that the city is not liable for the commission's torts. The purpose of the presentment requirement is to "ensur[e] that the responsible public official receives notice of the claim so that that official can investigate to determine whether or not a claim is valid, preclude payment of inflated or nonmeritorious claims, settle valid claims expeditiously, and take steps to ensure that similar claims will not be brought in the future." Gilmore v. Commonwealth, 417 Mass. 718, 721-722, 632 N.E.2d 838 (1994), quoting Lodge v. District Attorney for the Suffolk Dist., 21 Mass.App.Ct. 277, 283, 486 N.E.2d 764 (1985). This purpose is not served by allowing presentment to an official who is not responsible for claims against the entity at issue, and thus has no authority to investigate or settle such claims on its behalf. Here, the commission's enabling act imposes on the commission, and not the city, "all debts, liabilities, and other obligations of the city" pertaining to the commission's predecessor entities. See St.1995, c. 147, § 6(c). Significantly, it expressly excludes tort liability arising out of events prior to transfer of control to the commission, which "shall not be assumed by or imposed upon the commission but shall continue to be the liabilities of the city." Id. The unmistakable meaning of this limited exception to the commission's tort liability is that the commission is liable for its torts. It would be illogical to make special provision for the city's liability for a narrow subset of torts if the city were in fact liable for all the torts of the commission. Furthermore, making the city liable for the commission's torts, as though the commission were a city department, would contradict § 3(a) of the enabling act, discussed at length supra, which makes the commission a "body politic and corporate and political subdivision of the [C]ommonwealth." Because the commission itself is the entity with the authority to investigate and settle tort claims against it, allowing presentment of a tort claim to the mayor of Boston would defeat the purpose of presentment.

The plaintiff nonetheless argues that presentment to the mayor was sufficient because a provision of the commission's enabling act states that it has the power to "sue and be sued, prosecute and defend actions relating to its properties and affairs, and to be liable in tort in the same manner as" the department of health and hospitals. St.1995, c. 147, § 7(a)(11). Insofar as the plaintiff interprets this clause to mean that the city is liable for the commission's torts, as just discussed, such an interpretation would be contrary to the rest of the enabling act. "[A] statute should be read as a whole to produce an internal consistency." Telesetsky v. Wight, 395 Mass. 868, 873, 482 N.E.2d 818 (1985). This is not to say that § 7(a)(11) is superfluous; as...