Taylor v. Beaudry, 82 Mass. App. Ct. 105 (2012)

Citation: Taylor v. Beaudry, 82 Mass. App. Ct. 105 (2012)
Parent Document: Taylor v. Beaudry, 82 Mass. App. Ct. 105 (2012)
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts (state)
Effective Date: 2012-07-09
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/6589791/taylor-v-beaudry/ ↗

Full Text

1,232 chars

Brown, J.
(dissenting). It is hardly credible that the Legislature intended, by passage of the Security Deposit Act (Act), to foster a cottage industry for tenants to chum a per se but nonetheless harmless infraction into a treble damages windfall; such a result advances no remedial or deterrent policy. The courts of the Commonwealth are surely “no bourse for sordid money-getting, no mart of trade or commerce.” Cardozo, 2 N.Y. St. B.A. Bull. 535 (1930). In doing justice across the wide spectmm of civil disputes, it has been observed more than once that we can only “wish the needy knew how to put the law to work for them as assiduously as the greedy seem to do.” Edinburg v. Edinburg, 22 Mass. App. Ct. 199, 210 (1986) (Brown, J., concurring). This is not an instance of a tenant’s enforcement action, designed and pursued as a “vindicative lawsuit[]” as has been “encouraged” by the Legislature, see Hampshire Village Assocs. v. District Ct. of Hampshire, 381 Mass. 148, 151, cert, denied sub nom. Ruhlander v. District Ct. of Hampshire, 449 U.S. 1062 (1980); Mellor v. Berman, 390 Mass. 275, 281 (1983), to deter and correct wrongdoing, but rather it has a vindictive character in the worst sense of that descriptive word.1

Other Sections in This Document (67)

Full Text