SJC Affirms Denial of Extraordinary Relief in Foreclosure Challenge: Gambee v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. (SJC-13964, October 29, 2026)

Robert Gambee lost his Nantucket home to foreclosure in 2010. He has been litigating the loss ever since. By the time the Supreme Judicial Court issued this decision, Gambee had filed five separate lawsuits challenging the foreclosure. He lost all five. The court affirmed a single justice’s denial of his latest attempt: a petition for extraordinary relief under G. L. c. 211, § 3.

The decision is a brief, unanimous affirmance. It reinforces a basic principle: litigants who ignore available appellate routes cannot manufacture a claim to extraordinary relief by petitioning the Supreme Judicial Court directly.

The Foreclosure Saga

Gambee’s foreclosure litigation began in 2013, three years after he lost the property. His 2016 action in the Land Court was among the unsuccessful challenges. Seven years later, in 2023, he filed a Rule 60(b)(6) motion seeking relief from the Land Court judgment. He claimed newly discovered evidence: proof that the foreclosing bank never had an ownership interest in his home. He characterized the foreclosure as fraud.

The Land Court judge denied the motion as untimely. Gambee said he had obtained the evidence six years before filing the motion, a fact the judge found fatal to the claim of newly discovered proof.

Undeterred, Gambee filed a new complaint in Superior Court on March 13, 2025. The factual allegations were identical to those in the Rule 60(b)(6) motion. The Superior Court dismissed the complaint under res judicata. It also granted the defendants’ request for a prefiling order: Gambee would need approval from the regional administrative justice before filing additional complaints in that court.

Gambee then moved for leave to file another Rule 60(b)(6) motion, this time to vacate the Superior Court judgment. That motion was denied. On May 19, 2026, he filed a petition with the Supreme Judicial Court under G. L. c. 211, § 3, seeking relief from the Superior Court’s dismissal and prefiling order.

The Adequate-Remedy Requirement

A single justice denied the petition without a hearing. Gambee appealed. His memorandum argued that a direct appeal from the dismissal would not provide an adequate remedy because the correct vehicle for his claim was a Rule 60(b)(6) motion, not an ordinary appeal.

The court rejected that argument. Gambee had filed two Rule 60(b)(6) motions. Both were denied. He appealed neither. The principle is settled: failing to pursue an available remedy, or pursuing it unsuccessfully without appeal, does not create a right to extraordinary relief. The court cited Tavares v. Commonwealth for the proposition that “[t]he fact that the petitioner failed to pursue [an] alternative route or pursued it unsuccessfully does not create a right to relief under G. L. c. 211, § 3.”

Because Gambee could have appealed the denials of his Rule 60(b)(6) motions in the ordinary course, he failed to establish the absence of an adequate alternative remedy. That failure was fatal to his petition.

The Prefiling Order

The court also addressed the Superior Court’s prefiling order, which requires Gambee to obtain approval before filing additional complaints. Gambee argued that this order independently warranted extraordinary relief. The court cited Cooper v. CVS Pharmacy, a 2008 decision holding that a petitioner challenging a similar prefiling order failed to demonstrate the absence of adequate alternative remedies. The holding applied with equal force here.

Rule 2:21 and Final Judgments

Gambee had submitted a memorandum pursuant to Supreme Judicial Court Rule 2:21, which governs petitions seeking review of interlocutory rulings. The court noted that the rule did not technically apply because Gambee was contesting a final judgment dismissing his civil action, not an interlocutory ruling. But the underlying requirement remained: even when Rule 2:21 does not apply by its terms, a petitioner must still show the absence of an adequate alternative remedy to obtain extraordinary relief under G. L. c. 211, § 3.

Why This Matters

This decision will not break new ground in any treatise. Its significance lies in application, not doctrine. The court affirmed that G. L. c. 211, § 3, is not a bypass around the ordinary appellate process. Litigants dissatisfied with trial court rulings must use the appeals process. They cannot skip that step and petition the Supreme Judicial Court directly, even when they believe the trial court applied the wrong procedural rule.

The decision also illustrates the consequences of serial litigation. By 2026, Gambee had filed five separate lawsuits challenging a 2010 foreclosure. Courts had repeatedly rejected his claims, and he had failed to appeal adverse rulings on his procedural motions. At some point, the opportunities to relitigate run out. This case marked that point for Gambee.

Practitioners will note the court’s citation to Matter of an Impounded Case (No. 4), a 2026 decision that similarly affirmed denial of a G. L. c. 211, § 3 petition where the petitioner could have appealed both the underlying judgment and the denial of a Rule 60 motion. The two decisions together reinforce that the availability of an ordinary appeal forecloses extraordinary relief, even when the petitioner characterizes the trial court’s ruling as procedurally incorrect.

Read the full opinion: Gambee v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A (SJC-13964, October 29, 2026).