New England In-House

A collection agency that was not party to a contract between a business and a consumer could not compel arbitration of the consumer’s claims against the collection agency over its practices, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled. Consumer advocates ...

The federal government has agreed to rescind the recently announced federal policy that would have barred all international students from remaining in the United States if they took only online classes. U.S. District Court Judge Allison D. Burroughs announced the ...

Massachusetts voters will get their say on a ballot question that would expand the ability of convenience stores to sell beer and wine, thanks to a May 26 decision by the state’s Supreme Judicial Court. Package store owners had mounted ...

A federal lawsuit filed April 30 accuses Boston University of improperly retaining fees and other payments from students after “constructively evicting” students and transitioning to online classes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In a suit filed the following day in U.S. District ...

On April 17, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law an act designed to provide liability protection for health care workers and facilities treating COVID-19 patients. The new law, Chapter 64 of the Acts of 2020, provides to health care professionals ...

A college in Massachusetts cannot avail itself of an affirmative defense grounded in the First Amendment’s religion clauses known as the “ministerial exception” in a discrimination suit brought by one of its former professors, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge ruled on ...

The commercial custodian of non-discretionary individual retirement accounts did not owe a fiduciary duty to a named beneficiary of those accounts, but the beneficiary could maintain a suit under the consumer protection statute, G.L.c. 93A, by credibly alleging that the ...

Not surprisingly, attorneys who represent employers and those who represent employees disagree on both the process and potential end result of Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s move to use a supplemental spending bill to respond to a decision by the Supreme ...

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination’s recently adopted policy regarding the disclosure of charges in open cases conflicts with its own regulations, the state Appeals Court has found. With its Nov. 19 ruling, the court overturned the decision of Massachusetts Superior Court Judge Rosemary Connolly that ...

In December, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments related to Gov. Charlie Baker’s emergency regulation banning the sale of nicotine vaping products. Baker’s administration had appealed an Oct. 21 order of the state Superior Court, which had allowed ...