Thomas H. Curran Associates recently obtained an appellate victory in the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court on May 26, 2023, in the matter of Suburban Electric Contracting, Inc. v. Sefer Ozdemir. After a judgment in its favor for $65,708.26, appellant Suburban moved for the appointment of a special process server to execute on Ozdemir’s property in satisfaction of the judgment. The execution amount plus postjudgment interest was tendered via check, which appellant refused to accept. Appellant instead continued litigating its prior motion, which the trial court judge denied, ordering that further accrual of interest on the judgment be tolled. After this, Appellant filed a motion to vacate the tolling order and, in the alternative, a motion to stay the tolling order pending appeal, which was denied by a second trial court judge. On appeal of the denial, a single justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied the appeal without a hearing. Appellant then petitioned for panel review in the Supreme Judicial Court.
The Supreme Judicial Court denied the appeal and upheld the single justice’s order. The Court ruled that the single justice had not erred or abused her discretion. Rather, the Court recognized that Appellant had not demonstrated that its challenge “could not adequately be addressed through the ordinary appellate process, in an appeal . . . from the postjudgment order.” Lasher v. Leslie-Lasher, 474 Mass. 1003, 1004 (2016). The Court noted that Appellant had explicitly mentioned pursuing appeal in its motion to vacate the tolling order, but failed to do so. As a result, the Court declined to provide extraordinary relief when Appellant did not avail itself of ordinary relief.