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DRAFT FOR ATTORNEY REVIEW — NOT FINAL

Cruz Management Co. v. Thomas, 417 Mass. 782 (1994)

Citation
Cruz Management Co. v. Thomas, 417 Mass. 782 (1994)
Parent Document
Cruz Management Co. v. Thomas, 417 Mass. 782 (1994)
Jurisdiction
Massachusetts (state)
Effective Date
1994-05-12

Full Text

1,294 chars
a. Motion to dismiss. MHFA has filed a motion to dismiss Thomas’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction on the ground that Thomas’s notice of appeal was filed prematurely, and was, therefore, ineffective. See Manzaro v. McCann, 401 Mass. 880, 881-882 & n.2 (1988) (Mass. R. A. P. 4 [a], as amended, 393 Mass. 1239 [1985], provides that time for appeal runs from date of entry of order ruling on a motion under rule 59(e); notice of appeal filed prematurely has no effect; this rule applies in a summary process action). MHFA did not raise this issue in its brief, and waited until more than one year after final judgment entered before filing this motion. Because the postjudgment motion for intervention filed by MHFA, from which Thomas filed a notice of appeal, engendered some confusion about when final judgment en*785tered, and because Thomas’s request for direct appellate review by this court was, in fact, endorsed by MHFA, we decline to treat Thomas’s notice of appeal as a nullity. See Urban Inv. & Dev. Co. v. Turner Constr. Co., 35 Mass. App. Ct. 100, 101 n.3 (1993). See also Brown v. Quinn, 406 Mass. 641, 646 (1990) (where party has filed postjudgment motions and taken actions as though appeal was proper, it is estopped from arguing subsequently that notice of appeal was premature).