Eresian v. Merrill Lynch Credit Corporation, et al. (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-145-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-12006 EVELYN J. ERESIAN vs. MERRILL LYNCH CREDIT CORPORATION[1] & others.[2],[3] September 12, 2016. Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. In the early 1990s, the petitioner, Evelyn J. Eresian, was the defendant in a summary process action in the Housing Court. The Appeals Court affirmed a judgment against Eresian in that action in 1993, and this court subsequently denied Eresian’s application for further appellate review. See Merrill Lynch Equity Mgt., Inc. v. Eresian, 34 Mass. App. Ct. 1125, S.C., 416 Mass. 1104 (1993). In the years since, Eresian has sought repeatedly, and unsuccessfully, to challenge the foreclosure that led to the summary process action. This case represents the latest iteration of those efforts. In 2015, Eresian filed a motion in the Appeals Court seeking to vacate that court’s 1993 decision. The Appeals Court’s response, as noted on its docket, was that “[t]he case is closed as the rescript has issued to the trial court. No action will be taken by the court on this or any future filing in this matter.”[4] Eresian subsequently filed a petition pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, in the county court in which she asked the single justice to require the Appeals Court to review the jurisdictional issue. A single justice denied the petition, and Eresian timely filed a notice of appeal. Her appeal was entered in the full court on November 27, 2015. On January 22, 2016, Eresian asked for and received leave to extend the time for filing her brief to February 29, 2016. After Eresian failed to file her brief on or before that date, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the appeal. Eresian, in turn, filed several documents in response to the motion to dismiss, including an opposition and a supplemental opposition. She has not yet, however, filed a brief, and we could dismiss her appeal on this basis alone — that she has failed to prosecute the appeal. She would fare no better even if we were to reach the merits. This case was not a proper use of G. L. c. 211, § 3. Eresian has already obtained appellate review of the summary process judgment, and she has not demonstrated that the remedy of ordinary appellate review was inadequate. There is no reason why she could not have raised her current jurisdictional claim in the Appeals […]