KJC Obtains Dismissal of Land Court Complaint, Appeals Court Affirms

KJC’s Scott D. Carman and Nicholas F. Feloney previously obtained a dismissal of a plaintiff’s complaint in the Land Court and, on the plaintiff’s appeal, recently persuaded the Appeals Court to affirm that decision. 

KJC’s client, a housing provider-participant in the federal government’s low income housing tax credit program (the “LIHTCP”), was sued in the Land Court by a former tenant for alleged noncompliance with the LIHTCP’s rules.  Attorney Carman and Attorney Feloney defended the case by filing a motion to dismiss the complaint in the Land Court for failure to state a claim for relief, arguing that the plaintiff lacked standing and, in the alternative, that her claims were barred by the doctrine of res judicata due to certain counterclaims the former tenant had previously asserted in an eviction action. 

The Land Court agreed with Attorney Carman and Attorney Feloney on both grounds, dismissing the complaint against KJC’s client with prejudice.  The Land Court found that the plaintiff did not have a private right of action to enforce the provisions of federal tax law under the LIHTCP or under the recorded restrictive deed covenant.   Additionally, the Land Court held that since the same parties had previously litigated the same claims in a prior Eastern Housing Court Case where KJC had successfully evicted the plaintiff for nonpayment of rent and failure to recertify her income, those issues could not be re-litigated.   

The plaintiff then appealed the Land Court’s dismissal of her complaint, arguing in large part that the Land Court had erred by failing to review the Eastern Housing Court’s prior findings of fact and conclusions of law in the adverse summary process eviction case entered against her.  On brief, Attorney Feloney made it clear to the Appeals Court that the plaintiff lacked standing under the federal law provisions of the LIHTCP as well as the recorded deed covenant, and that there was no question that the plaintiff’s complaint was barred by the age-old rule that no claims which “arise out of the same transaction or occurrence” may be re-litigated by the same parties where judgment has been previously entered on the merits in a prior case.  The Appeals Court agreed with both arguments and affirmed the Land Court’s dismissal of the plaintiff’s complaint. 

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