On June 21, 2021, the Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed the civil contempt Judgment of the Suffolk Superior Court (Giles, J.) awarding Thomas H. Curran Associates’s client, Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency (“MHFA”), an entity formed by the Commonwealth to promote affordable housing in Massachusetts, nearly $8 million in damages stemming from the defendant, James E. Spalt’s aiding and abetting his father’s repeated violation of preliminary injunction orders entered by the Superior Court in 2013 and 2014. The Appeals Court rejected Mr. Spalt’s argument that he could not be held in contempt of a preliminary injunction that he was not specifically named in, along with his other defenses to the Superior Court’s Judgment.
The underlying contempt Judgment was entered following a three-day contempt trial prosecuted by Thomas H. Curran Associates’s managing partner, Thomas H. Curran, after which the Superior Court found overwhelming evidence of Mr. Spalt’s notice, knowledge and participation in his father’s scheme to dissipate assets through the entity Cape Coastal Marine, LLC, which James E. Spalt was ostensibly the manager of, in violation of the Superior Court’s injunction orders. The Appeals Court reiterated well settled principles of Massachusetts contempt law, commenting that “[t]o hold a nonparty in contempt for violation of an injunction, the court must not only find actual notice of the order, but also that the nonparty knowingly aided the violation of the injunction.” Applying that standard, the Appeals Court gave short shrift to the defendant’s appellate arguments, concluding that Mr. Spalt had “actual notice” of the injunction and “knowingly aided his father in the violation of the June 24, 2014 order.” The Appeals Court gave particular weight to the facts found by the Superior Court that Mr. Spalt had “extensive knowledge of the proceedings against his father [in which the preliminary injunction was entered], prior to being included as a defendant, as evidenced by his efforts to restructure the Spalt family entities, and to seek carve-outs for such entities from the injunctions.” Insofar as the injunction contained standard language set forth in Mass. R. Civ. P. 65(d), which covered officers, employees and agents of a named party “and those persons in active concert or participation with the above-named persons”, the Court rejected Mr. Spalt’s assertion that the injunction orders were ambiguous. The Court held that “[t]he mere fact that Jamie, a person who was not yet a party to the litigation, was not explicitly mentioned by name in the injunction does not render the order ambiguous.”
The Appeals Court’s decision affirming the Suffolk Superior Court’s Judgment is a well-deserved victory for Thomas H. Curran Associates’s client, MHFA, and a clear vindication of the Massachusetts trial court’s authority to enforce its orders through its contempt power. In addition to prosecuting the contempt trial before the Superior Court, Thomas H. Curran successfully argued, on behalf of MHFA, the appeal before the Massachusetts Appeals Court panel.