Summary Process Judgments Don’t Trigger Claim Preclusion: Eng v. Chen’s Food Enterprise (AC 25-P-1222, Aug. 24, 2026)

A landlord who loses an eviction case on procedural grounds can try again. The Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled on August 24 that the summary process statute overrides the normal rules of claim preclusion, allowing landlords (and tenants) to bring successive actions to recover possession of property even after an earlier judgment.

The decision reverses an Appellate Division ruling that had barred a commercial landlord’s second eviction attempt against a warehouse tenant after the first case was dismissed for lack of proof that a termination notice had been sent.

The Lease and the First Lawsuit

Paul Eng, as trustee, leased warehouse space in Roxbury to Chen’s Food Enterprise, Inc., in December 2018. The rent was $9,000 per month. In October 2023, Eng sued for eviction in Boston Municipal Court, claiming nonpayment of rent and seeking nearly $194,000 in damages plus possession.

At trial in January 2024, Chen’s Food moved for involuntary dismissal under Mass. R. Civ. P. 41(b)(2), arguing that Eng had failed to prove he sent the lease-required notice of termination. The judge agreed. Relying on a 2018 Supreme Judicial Court decision, the judge found this failure fatal to Eng’s prima facie case and dismissed the complaint on February 2, 2024.

Ten days later, Eng sent a termination notice to Limin Chen, the principal behind Chen’s Food. Two weeks after that, he filed a new summary process action against Chen’s Food, again seeking possession and damages (now over $205,000). He later added Limin Chen as a defendant.

Round Two and the Preclusion Defense

Chen’s Food and Limin Chen moved for judgment on the pleadings, arguing that the dismissal of the first action barred the second under claim preclusion. The same judge who had dismissed the first case denied the motion from the bench, reasoning that the earlier dismissal was based on procedural noncompliance, not an adjudication on the merits.

The defendants renewed their preclusion argument twice more during a three-day trial in June 2024. The judge denied both motions. After trial, he issued a detailed written decision awarding Eng possession and $198,000 in damages plus interest and costs.

The defendants appealed to the Appellate Division, raising four arguments including claim preclusion. A panel reversed, holding that the involuntary dismissal was an adjudication on the merits because the judge had not specified otherwise. The panel found it unnecessary to address the other arguments.

What the Appeals Court Held

The Appeals Court reversed the Appellate Division and remanded for consideration of the defendants’ remaining arguments. Justice Shin, writing for the panel, held that General Laws chapter 239, section 7, plainly authorizes successive summary process actions and therefore supersedes claim preclusion in this context.

The statute provides that a judgment in a summary process action shall not bar any later action by either party to recover the land or tenements in question, or to recover damages for trespass. The court found this language unambiguous: Eng’s second lawsuit, brought to recover possession and damages for unpaid rent, qualified as an action to recover the tenements in question. The first judgment was therefore not a bar.

The Reasoning

The defendants had argued that Mass. R. Civ. P. 41(b)(3) governed, which provides that involuntary dismissals operate as adjudications on the merits unless the court specifies otherwise. The Appeals Court disagreed. The civil rules do not govern summary process proceedings and can be used only to fill procedural gaps in ways consistent with the summary process statute. Here, the statute contains no requirement that a dismissal order specify whether it is with or without prejudice. The statute simply says the judgment shall not be a bar.

The court also rejected the defendants’ absurdity argument. They had warned that a literal reading would let landlords refile the same case repeatedly until they win. Not so, the court explained. Issue preclusion still applies. Although section 7 prevents a summary process judgment from barring a new action, it does not permit relitigation of issues actually decided in the earlier case. The court cited its prior decisions in Duross v. Scudder Bay Capital and Bigelow v. Reem Property, which held that issues litigated and decided in summary process actions are precluded in subsequent proceedings.

The defendants also suggested that without claim preclusion, default judgments and agreements for judgment would never be final because tenants could later sue to recover possession. The court found this unpersuasive, noting that the defendants identified no cause of action that would allow such suits.

Why It Matters

The decision protects landlords who lose eviction cases on procedural or technical grounds. Summary process actions are often dismissed because of defects in notices to quit, such as premature filing or failure to state just cause. Under the Appellate Division’s rule, such dismissals would forever bar the landlord from recovering possession absent some new default by the tenant. The landlord would also lose any claim for damages, including unpaid rent.

That outcome struck the Appeals Court as inconsistent with legislative intent. Eng did not have a chance to fully litigate his damages claim in the first action because it was dismissed along with his possession claim. Had he chosen not to join the damages claim initially, he could have raised it later under another summary process provision. Barring him from both possession and damages because of a procedural misstep would be particularly harsh.

The court left open the question of how its prior decisions giving claim-preclusive effect to summary process judgments square with section 7. Those cases, Santos v. U.S. Bank and Bui v. Ma, did not cite or discuss the statute because the parties had not raised it.

The case now returns to the Appellate Division to address the defendants’ three other arguments, which were not briefed to the Appeals Court.

Read the full opinion: Eng v. Chen's Food Enterprise, Inc. (AC-25-P-1222, August 24, 2026).