Eresian v. Superior Court (SJC-13775)

Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Date: November 7, 2025
Outcome: Judgment affirmed (petitioners’ appeal denied)

Key Facts

The Underlying Case:

In 2022, Melanie and Eva Eresian filed complaints against Webster First Federal Credit Union in county court
Cases were consolidated and transferred to Superior Court with strict scheduling deadlines
Court set August 25, 2023 deadline for summary judgment motions, warning “no extensions will be granted absent extraordinary hardship”
Petitioners amended their complaint two months before the deadline, adding numerous defendants, which resulted in a reluctant extension from the judge

The Summary Judgment Problem:

Webster filed for summary judgment in February 2024
Instead of responding, petitioners filed multiple motions to strike, stay, or defer ruling on Webster’s motion
Court ordered petitioners to respond within 21 days (by June 2024)
Petitioners requested another extension, citing a “town-wide Internet outage” that allegedly caused them to lose two weeks of work
Judge denied the extension on June 26, 2024
Two weeks later, judge granted Webster’s summary judgment motion because petitioners never filed a response

The Court’s Findings: The judge noted petitioners had:

8 months to prepare their own summary judgment motion
4 months to prepare opposition to Webster’s motion
21 additional days from May 28
Yet filed nothing but requests for delays and extensions

The Appeal

After losing, the Eresians filed a G.L. c. 211, § 3 petition seeking supervisory review of various interlocutory rulings. The SJC denied relief because:

Most claims were moot – over a year had passed since the challenged rulings
Adequate alternative remedies existed – they could have pursued normal appeals but never did
No abuse of discretion – the single justice properly declined to intervene

Bottom Line

This is a case about procedural failures by pro se litigants. The Eresians repeatedly sought extensions and delays rather than responding to Webster’s summary judgment motion, despite having many months to do so. When they lost, they tried to use supervisory review to challenge procedural rulings, but the SJC found no extraordinary circumstances warranting intervention.