DeMichele v. Waltham Div. of Dist. Court Dept.
| Decision Date | 10 March 1994 |
| Parties | & another. 1 Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Paul R. Tremblay, Newton, for plaintiff.
Frank R. Sherman, Waltham, for Bernard LeBlanc, trustee.
Lonnie A. Powers, Boston, for Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corp., amicus curiae, submitted a brief.
Ernest Winsor & Ann Morse Hartner, Boston, for Massachusetts Tenants Organization, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.
Before LIACOS, C.J., and NOLAN, O'CONNOR and GREANEY, JJ.
The question on appeal is whether a judge in the District Court may disqualify a litigant in a civil case from receiving free legal representation by a State-funded law school legal services program on the ground that the litigant is not indigent. 2
The appellate issue arose in the following context. The plaintiff, David DeMichele, filed a complaint in the Waltham Division of the District Court Department against his former landlord, Baron Realty Trust, and Bernard LeBlanc, trustee of Baron Realty Trust, alleging unfair and deceptive trade practices in violation of G.L. c. 93A (1992 ed.), based on the defendants' failure to remedy various apartment defects, and on violations of G.L. c. 186, § 15B (1992 ed.), the security deposit statute. The plaintiff was represented in the action by a law student and a supervising member of the bar from the Boston College Legal Assistance Bureau (BCLAB) pursuant to S.J.C. Rule 3:03, as amended, 414 Mass. 1303 (1993). 3 A judge found the plaintiff "marginally" indigent and granted his fee and cost waiver request, pursuant to G.L. c. 261, §§ 27A-27G (1992 ed.), except for the filing fee. The defendants then moved to disqualify the plaintiff's attorneys, arguing that BCLAB "is a legal-assistance organization supported by federal and state funding and [that] the plaintiff [did] not qualify to be represented by such an organization." The plaintiff argued that the defendants were barred by 42 U.S.C. § 2996e(b)(1)(B) (1988), a provision of the Legal Services Corporation Act, from challenging in the course of the District Court litigation the plaintiff's eligibility for free legal representation.
The judge found that the plaintiff "d[id] not qualify for a court-authorized paid attorney," and stated in a memorandum that, although he had "found the plaintiff marginally indigent and allowed the plaintiff's '[r]equest for [w]aiver ... of [f]ees and [c]osts' with the exception of the filing fee," on reconsideration, "after further hearing of the plaintiff's current fiscal status," he found that "the plaintiff is financially able to procure his own counsel; that he is not among the 'poor, needy, indigent or otherwise unable to procure counsel of his choosing'; and that the Legal Assistance Bureau is not fulfilling the statutory purpose, but rather it is pursuing its personal academic interests in accepting this plaintiff's case while denying more deserving plaintiffs and defendants with less academically challenging cases...." The judge then wrote a letter to the licensed attorney at BCLAB explicitly prohibiting "plaintiff counsel ... from representing the ... plaintiff" in this case. The judge wrote, "If [the plaintiff] is to be represented by counsel in the further presentation of this case, he must secure counsel of his own choosing and at his own expense." On the plaintiff's request for reconsideration, the judge ruled that "specifically considering Title 42, [s] 2996e(b)(1)(B) ... [the] court does have authority to find that the named plaintiff does not qualify for representation by a legal aid society," but he granted the plaintiff's request for a stay of disqualification pending review. A single justice of this court denied the plaintiff's petition for relief under G.L. c. 211, § 3, after a hearing. The plaintiff appealed to the full court. We now reverse the order of the single justice denying relief, and we vacate the District Court judge's order disqualifying the plaintiff from receiving free legal representation by the plaintiff's present counsel furnished by BCLAB.
Massachusetts Legal Assistance Corporation (MLAC) is authorized by G.L. c. 221A, § 2 (1992 ed.), to give financial assistance to legal services programs that provide free legal services to certain indigent parties. MLAC is empowered "to accept and evaluate applications from qualified legal services programs and to determine the amount of financial assistance to be provided to such qualified legal services programs." G.L. c. 221A, § 6(k). Chapter 221A, § 7, provides in material part as follows:
The statute makes clear that the question whether BCLAB is misapplying MLAC funds by representing the plaintiff in this case is not for the judge but, instead, for MLAC to answer. "No question of whether representation is authorized ... shall be considered in, or affect the final disposition of, any proceeding in which a person is represented by a [funding] recipient" (emphasis added). G.L. c. 221A, § 7. In this case, the plaintiff is represented by counsel provided by a funding recipient, BCLAB, and therefore, by application of the clear terms of the statute, the question whether that representation is authorized may not be considered in this proceeding. The statutory prohibition is not only against consideration by the judge of the representation question in connection with resolving the merits of the case but also is against consideration by the judge of the representation question for any other purpose. Construed any other way, the statutory language would be redundant.
It does not follow, of course, that a recipient of MLAC funds, such as BCLAB, is immune from challenges to its representation of unqualified clients or other misapplication of the funds it has received. As the statute provides, "[a] litigant in [any proceeding in which a person is represented by an employee of a recipient] may refer such question to the corporation [MLAC] which shall review and dispose of a question promptly and take appropriate action." Section 7 provides that appropriate action may include "terminat[ing] after a...
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...prohibits trial court from determining issue of representation and citing similar cases); see also DeMichele v. Waltham Div. Dist. Court Dep't, 417 Mass. 243, 629 N.E.2d 982, 984-85 (1994) (interpreting similar state statute and holding trial court prohibited from determining eligibility of......