Harvard Climate Justice Coalition, et al. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, et al. (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-142-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 15-P-905 Appeals Court HARVARD CLIMATE JUSTICE COALITION & others[1] vs. PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE & others.[2] No. 15-P-905. Suffolk. June 7, 2016. – October 6, 2016. Present: Cypher, Grainger, & Kinder, JJ. Charity. Corporation, Charitable corporation. Practice, Civil, Motion to dismiss, Standing. Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on November 19, 2014. Motions to dismiss were heard by Paul D. Wilson, J. Joseph E. Hamilton, pro se. Benjamin A. Franta, pro se. Brett Blank, Assistant Attorney General, for the Attorney General. Martin F. Murphy for President and Fellows of Harvard College & another. Jeffrey D. Pierce, of California, & Piper Hoffman, for Animal Legal Defense Fund, amicus curiae, submitted a brief. Daniel M. Galpern, of Oregon, & Joseph B. Simons, for James E. Hansen, amicus curiae, submitted a brief. CYPHER, J. The plaintiffs, Harvard Climate Justice Coalition, an unincorporated association of students at Harvard University (university), and its members, appeal from a Superior Court judgment dismissing their action that sought a permanent injunction requiring the President and Fellows of Harvard College (the university’s formal name) and Harvard Management Company, Inc. (the company that manages the endowment funds) (collectively, Harvard), to divest the university’s endowment of investments in fossil fuel companies. In a two-count complaint, the plaintiffs allege that those investments contribute to climate changes (commonly known as global warming), which adversely impact their education and in the future will adversely impact the university’s physical campus. We affirm.[3] The students filed their complaint in November, 2014. Almost two months later, the defendants, Harvard and the Attorney General,[4] filed motions to dismiss. In count one of the complaint, the plaintiffs asserted that the harms of global warming resulting from investments in fossil fuel companies constitute mismanagement of the charitable funds in the university’s endowment. In count two, the plaintiffs sought to assert the rights of “[f]uture [g]enerations” to be free of what the plaintiffs call the “[a]bnormally [d]angerous [a]ctivities” of those companies, and proposed a new tort of “[i]ntentional [i]nvestment in [a]bnormally [d]angerous [a]ctivities.” The judge allowed both motions to dismiss. As to count one, the judge ruled that the plaintiffs failed to show that they had standing to maintain their claim of mismanagement of the endowment. As to count two, the judge declined […]
Myrick v. Harvard University (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-037-16)
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-11976 KYL V. MYRICK vs. HARVARD UNIVERSITY. March 15, 2016. Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. Appeals Court. Practice, Civil, Stay of proceedings. Kyl V. Myrick appeals from a judgment of a single justice of this court that denied relief from a ruling of a single justice of the Appeals Court in a case that is currently pending in the Appeals Court. We affirm. The case originated in the Superior Court when Myrick filed a complaint against Harvard University alleging employment discrimination. A judge in the Superior Court dismissed the complaint on Harvard’s motion and denied Myrick’s subsequent attempts to reinstate the case. Myrick appealed to the Appeals Court and, while his appeal was pending, moved to stay the appeal so that he could file a new complaint and seek additional discovery in the underlying action in the Superior Court. A single justice of the Appeals Court declined to stay the appeal. Myrick then requested that a single justice of this court grant relief from the Appeals Court single justice’s order by either staying the appeal in the Appeals Court or remanding the entire matter to the Superior Court. On the day this appeal was entered in the full court, Myrick filed a two-page memorandum and an appendix of material from the record in the county court. It appears that he filed these things in an attempt to comply with S.J.C. Rule 2:21, as amended, 434 Mass. 1301 (2001). That rule does not apply here, however. It applies to cases in which a single justice of this court “denies relief from an interlocutory ruling in the trial court.” Id. Here the single justice denied relief from an order of a single justice of the Appeals Court in an appeal that is pending there. That said, we have reviewed Myrick’s submission and the entire record that was before the single justice in the county court, and it is apparent that the single justice neither erred nor abused her discretion by denying Myrick’s request for relief. Once the Appeals Court single justice denied Myrick’s request for a stay, Myrick could have sought review of that ruling from a panel of the Appeals Court, see Kordis v. Appeals Court, 434 Mass. 662 (2001), but did not do so. It was unnecessary, and it would have been especially inappropriate […]