15 results for 'judge:"Kafker"'.
J. Kafker upholds a city board’s decision to uphold a tax assessment of a media company using city signs for its advertisements, which it pays the city to do. The signs are not exempt from taxation because they constitute a for-profit use of the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority’s property in connection with a business. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: April 22, 2024, Case #: SJC-13489, Categories: Municipal Law, Tax, Business Practices
J. Kafker affirms defendant’s murder conviction after he shot a man four times, killing him, after they argued at a barbershop. Although the warrant to search defendant’s apartment was not signed by a judge, the judge did sign the search warrant affidavit and submitted a sworn affidavit that indicated she planned to sign the warrant, so the lack of signature on the warrant itself was a clerical error, and not one that would make the warrant invalid. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: April 12, 2024, Case #: SJC-09903, Categories: Firearms, Murder, Search
J. Kafker does not find that the defendant’s counsel was ineffective because it didn’t call a cell phone expert on her behalf. A cell phone expert would have been unlikely to change the jury’s conclusions about the defendant, who killed a pregnant woman and cut her baby out of her to keep as her own. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: March 18, 2024, Case #: SJC-12100, Categories: Murder, Kidnapping, Experts
J. Kafker reverses in part the granting of summary judgment in favor of a university against members of its tenured faculty suing it for requiring them to obtain 50% of their individual salaries from external research funding to avoid salary cuts and being reduced to part-time employees, and for requiring that their external funding maintain a specific cost recovery rate to avoid reductions in the size of their labs. While summary judgment is appropriate concerning lab sizes, because nothing in the faculty members’ tenure documents guarantees lab space, it is not appropriate where it concerns economic security, which is included in the tenure documents and could limit the university’s ability to reduce salary and full-time status.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: March 14, 2024, Case #: SJC-13472, Categories: Education, Employment, Contract
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J. Kafker finds that it is correct to allow a university’s special motion to dismiss various claims brought by a developer against the university for intending to build a dormitory on a sub-parcel of land where it originally planned to build a hotel with the developer. The university attempted to advance the hotel project multiple times with the developer unsuccessfully before moving forward to benefit itself by creating a dormitory instead. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: February 29, 2024, Case #: SJC-13405, Categories: Anti-slapp, Real Estate, Contract
J. Kafker finds discretion was not abused in the denial of Massachusetts’s motion to admit its expert testimony on frequent location history data. “The purpose of rule 15 is to provide an avenue for interlocutory review of rulings that would otherwise terminate a criminal proceeding,” so expansions of this rule are only allowed where they support this purpose. Affirmed.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: February 20, 2024, Case #: SJC-13499, Categories: Evidence, Murder, Experts
J. Kafker finds unenforceable a disputed agreement between a minority owner of a real estate company, which was purchasing a parcel of land to be used for a casino with a resort, and a representative of the resort. The agreement said the minority owner would be paid his percentage of the price reduction of said parcel of land, but the agreement was hidden from the commission empowered to review and approve casino licenses.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: November 3, 2023, Case #: SJC-13416, Categories: Administrative Law, Real Estate, Contract
J. Kafker affirms the denial of a government commissioner’s motion to terminate a consent decree which allows some mental health facilities to use electric skin shock as a treatment on developmentally disabled individuals with severe behavioral issues. While such a treatment sounds archaic, according to some patients’ family members it can be helpful as a last resort option for patients who might otherwise engage in severe self-harming behavior, like attempting to gauge their own eyes.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: September 7, 2023, Case #: SJC-13298, Categories: Health Care, Commitment
J. Kafker affirms the defendant’s convictions for murder. The defendant argues that her trial should have been held at a different venue because media coverage and publicity could influence the jury against her but a jury having prior knowledge of the crime doesn’t automatically prevent it from being fair and impartial.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: August 10, 2023, Case #: SJC-13231, Categories: Fair Trial, Murder, Assault
J. Kafker dismisses a former employee’s claims against his former employer for sexually harassing the former employee and his girlfriend, because the claim was brought outside of the 300-day statute of limitations. This particular statute was not one of those covered by a toll on statutes of limitations initiated as a response to Covid-19, which applied to lower courts, not the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination, which is an executive branch agency.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: July 11, 2023, Case #: SJC-13364, Categories: Administrative Law, Jurisdiction, Employment Discrimination
J. Kafker vacates defendant's conviction for the murder of his girlfriend, whom he chopped to death with a machete. The trial court improperly failed to instruct the jury on the impact of mental impairment or intoxication to determine whether defendant acted in a cruel and atrocious manner. Vacated.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: June 26, 2023, Case #: SJC-13225 , Categories: Murder, Jury Instructions
J. Kafker finds the trial court improperly dismissed a car manufacturer from a products liability case arising from traumatic brain injuries a passenger received in a car collision. Personal jurisdiction exists in Massachusetts under the commonwealth's long-arm statute and the due process clause. Vacated.
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Court, Judge: Kafker, Filed On: June 8, 2023, Case #: SJC-13354 , Categories: Product Liability, Jurisdiction