Beacon Residential Management, LP v. R.P. (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-148-17)

NOTICE:  All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-12265   BEACON RESIDENTIAL MANAGEMENT, LP  vs.  R.P.[1]       Suffolk.     April 6, 2017. – September 14, 2017.   Present:  Gants, C.J., Lenk, Hines, Gaziano, Lowy, & Budd, JJ.[2]     Summary Process.  Practice, Civil, Summary process, Intervention.       Summary Process.  Complaint filed in the Boston Division of the Housing Court Department on July 27, 2015.   A motion to intervene was heard by Jeffrey M. Winik, J.   An application for leave to prosecute an interlocutory appeal was allowed in the Appeals Court by Gregory I. Massing, J.  After review by the Appeals Court, the Supreme Judicial Court granted leave to obtain further appellate review.     David Emer (Alison T. Holdway also present) for the mother. Therese Quijano for the plaintiff. Julia Devanthéry, for Casa Myrna & another, amici curiae, submitted a brief. Dorothy Bourassa & Eileen M. Fava, for Women’s Bar Association, amicus curiae, submitted a brief.          BUDD, J.  In this case we consider whether a mother[3] has the right to intervene in an eviction action brought by a landlord against the mother’s husband and their young children as the named defendants where, although she is not a named tenant on the lease, she has lived with her family in the apartment throughout the tenancy and alleges domestic violence in the home.  We conclude that she may intervene both on her own behalf and on behalf of her children.[4] Background.  This case is before us on the mother’s appeal from the denial, by a judge of the Housing Court, of the her motion to intervene in a summary process action brought by Beacon Residential Management LP (Beacon), the agent of the apartment owner, Georgetowne Homes Two, L.L.C. (Georgetowne Homes) (collectively, landlord).  We recite relevant allegations from the mother’s motion to intervene and proposed answer, as supplemented by the testimony at the hearing before the motion judge.[5] In October, 2009, the mother, together with her husband, R.P., and their son, moved into a federally regulated and subsidized apartment in the Hyde Park section of Boston; the apartment was owned by Georgetowne Homes.[6]  Initially both the mother and R.P. signed the lease.  Soon thereafter the landlord informed them that the Federal government would not subsidize the rent due to the mother’s immigration status; thereafter, the couple removed the mother from the lease.[7]  At that […]

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