Adams v. Congress Auto Insurance Agency, Inc. (Lawyers Weekly No. 11-177-16)
NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports.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 15-P-452 Appeals Court MARK ADAMS vs. CONGRESS AUTO INSURANCE AGENCY, INC. No. 15-P-452. Middlesex. March 10, 2016. – December 21, 2016. Present: Kafker, C.J., Vuono, & Henry, JJ. Negligence, Insurance company, Employer, Foreseeability of harm, Causation, Retention of employee, Entrustment, Emotional distress. Damages, Emotional distress. Consumer Protection Act, Responsibility of employer. Practice, Civil, Summary judgment, Motion to amend. Civil action commenced in the Superior Court Department on April 16, 2013. Motions for summary judgment and to amend the complaint were heard by Peter B. Krupp, J. Henry P. Sorett for the plaintiff. Jeffrey S. Robbins for the defendant. HENRY, J. This case arose from an employee’s improper use of confidential information accessed through her workplace computer. The employee gave that information to her boy friend, who used it to intimidate a witness, Mark Adams. Adams brought this action against the employer, Congress Auto Insurance Agency, Inc. (Congress Agency or agency). A Superior Court judge dismissed four of his five claims. The case proceeded to discovery on the remaining claim against the agency that alleged negligent failure to safeguard Adams’s personal information. The same judge subsequently granted the agency’s motion for summary judgment on the remaining count and in the same memorandum and order denied Adams’s motion to amend his complaint to reinstate the dismissed claims and to add a claim for violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2721-2725. Adams appealed. We affirm in part and reverse in part. Summary judgment. “The standard of review of a grant of summary judgment is whether, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, all material facts have been established and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Lev v. Beverly Enterprises-Massachusetts, Inc., 457 Mass. 234, 237 (2010) (Lev), quoting from Cargill, Inc. v. Beaver Coal & Oil Co., 424 Mass. 356, 358 (1997). The burden rests on the defendant, as the moving party, to affirmatively demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact on every relevant issue. Ibid. Facts. Viewed in the light most favorable to Adams, as required at this stage of the proceedings, the summary judgment record discloses the following facts. The Congress Agency hired Elizabeth Burgos in August, 2003, as a customer service representative, promoting her to […]
Adams v. Adams (Lawyers Weekly No. 10-182-13)
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‑11488 NICHOLAS C. ADAMS vs. NANCY W. ADAMS. October 17, 2013. Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. The petitioner, Nicholas C. Adams (husband), appeals from a judgment of a single justice of this court denying his petition pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3.[1] We affirm. In 2011, we considered the husband’s appeal from a judgment of divorce from his wife, Nancy W. Adams. See Adams v. Adams, 459 Mass. 361 (2011). We vacated that part of the judgment that presently valued the husband’s partnership interest in Wellington Management Company, LLP, and remanded the case for further proceedings “directed solely at valuing that interest” as consistent with our opinion. Id. at 394. In all other respects, we affirmed the divorce judgment. Id. The husband’s current appeal stems from certain subsequent orders issued in the trial court that the husband claims violate our remand order. After remand, the trial judge referred the case to a special master to determine the valuation issue. Among other things, the order stated that the special master would only hear from witnesses who had testified in the initial proceedings (either in the trial court or before the special master). The husband thereafter filed a petition with a single justice of the Appeals Court pursuant to G. L. c. 231, § 118, first par., seeking relief from the order limiting witnesses because he wished to call a new expert witness. In essence, the husband argued that no basis existed to limit witnesses to those who had previously testified, and that nothing in our remand order required such a limitation. The Appeals Court single justice denied the petition. The husband later filed a second petition pursuant to G. L. c. 231, § 118, first par., seeking relief from a subsequent order of the trial judge denying his motion for an instruction to the special master to “not exceed or otherwise depart from the mandate of the SJC” and overruling his objection to a discovery order issued by the special master. This second petition was also denied. The husband then filed his G. L. c. 211, § 3, petition in the county court, where he continued to press the same arguments that he raised in his two petitions pursuant to G. L. c. 231, § 118, first par. — that he should be allowed to call a new expert witness […]