Lasher v. Leslie-Lasher (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-040-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557-1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC-11954 JEFFREY M. LASHER vs. TRICIA LESLIE-LASHER. March 22, 2016. Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. Divorce and Separation, Relief from judgment. Practice, Civil, Relief from judgment. The petitioner, Jeffrey M. Lasher, was divorced from the respondent, Tricia Leslie-Lasher, pursuant to a judgment of divorce nisi in 2014. In March, 2015, he filed a motion for relief from judgment, pursuant to Mass. R. Dom. Rel. P. 60 (b) (2) and (3), which was denied by a judge of the Probate and Family Court in May, 2015. The petitioner then filed a petition in the Appeals Court, pursuant to G. L. c. 231, § 118, first par., seeking review of that order.[1] He alleged both that the respondent had been untruthful about her financial resources in the divorce proceedings and that the Probate and Family Court judge should have recused himself from ruling on the postjudgment motion. A single justice of the Appeals Court initially remanded the case to the Probate and Family Court judge for clarification and findings regarding the status of the petitioner’s recusal motion and the judge’s ruling on it. After the judge issued his findings,[2] the single justice denied the petition and later denied a motion for reconsideration. A second single justice of the Appeals Court struck the petitioner’s notice of appeal. See McMenimen v. Passatempo, 452 Mass. 178, 189 (2008). The petitioner subsequently filed a substantially similar petition in the county court, pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3. A single justice of this court denied the petition. After allowing the petitioner’s motion for reconsideration, the single justice again denied the petition. We affirm the judgment of the single justice of this court. It is incumbent on a party seeking exercise of this court’s extraordinary power of general superintendence under G. L. c. 211, § 3, to demonstrate the absence or inadequacy of alternative means of redress. See Russell v. Nichols, 434 Mass. 1015, 1016 (2001); McGuiness v. Commonwealth, 420 Mass. 495, 497 (1995), and cases cited. In this case, the petitioner failed to allege, much less demonstrate, that the Probate and Family Court judge’s order denying relief from the divorce judgment could not adequately be addressed through the ordinary appellate process, in an appeal to a panel of the Appeals Court from the postjudgment order.[3] See, e.g., Raheman v. Raheman, 59 Mass. […]