C.E. v. J.E. (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-162-15)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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-11945 C.E. vs. J.E.[1] September 23, 2015. Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. Practice, Civil, Stay of proceedings. Divorce and Separation, Stay of judgment. C.E. (wife) appeals from a judgment of a single justice of this court denying her petition for relief under G. L. c. 211, § 3, specifically, a stay pending her appeal from a judgment of divorce nisi. At trial, the wife alleged that the husband, J.E., sexually abused one of the parties’ two minor children. The judge found, after a fourteen-day trial, that the alleged abuse had not been proved by a preponderance of the evidence. A judgment of divorce nisi issued, paragraphs 3 and 4 of which grant the husband unsupervised parenting time with the children. The wife moved in the Probate and Family Court and before a single justice of the Appeals Court for a stay pending appeal of these two paragraphs. Mass. R. A. P. 6, as appearing in 454 Mass. 1601 (2009). When those motions were unsuccessful, the wife filed her petition pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, seeking a stay, which a single justice of this court denied without a hearing. On the wife’s emergency motion, we issued an interim order staying paragraphs 3 and 4 pending further order of this court. We now vacate our interim order and affirm the judgment of the single justice.[2] “Relief pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, is extraordinary. We will not disturb the single justice’s denial of relief absent an abuse of discretion or other clear error of law. See, e.g., Matthews v. Appeals Court, 444 Mass. 1007, 1008 (2005). A petitioner seeking relief under the statute ‘must “demonstrate both a substantial claim of violation of [her] substantive rights and error that cannot be remedied under the ordinary review process.”‘ McGuinness v. Commonwealth, 420 Mass. 495, 497 (1995), quoting Planned Parenthood League of Mass., Inc. v. Operation Rescue, 406 Mass. 701, 706 (1990).” Bledsoe v. Commissioner of Correction, 470 Mass. 1017, 1017 (2014), quoting Black v. Commonwealth, 459 Mass. 1003, 1003 (2011). Here, the wife had an adequate remedy in the ordinary review process, as she “had the opportunity to appeal from the order of the single justice of the Appeals Court to a panel of that court” and “also could have requested that the Appeals Court expedite such an appeal.” Blonde v. […]