Fees for contempt not subject to charitable cap

The Supreme Judicial Court has upheld a fee award of $134,566.43 in a civil contempt proceeding against a charitable organization and three of its unpaid volunteers, finding the statutory $20,000 cap on charitable tort liability to be inapplicable.

The defendants, the organization and three individual volunteers, argued that the $20,000 cap established by G.L.c. 231, §85K, applied to an award of attorneys’ fees and costs in a civil contempt matter. A Superior Court judge found that the cap did not apply, as the contempt proceeding was not an action based on tort.

The SJC agreed.

“Pointing to the remedial nature of civil contempt proceedings to compensate the plaintiff for wrongful conduct, the defendants contend that [plaintiff Mahabub] Khoda’s contempt claim was a ‘cause of action based on tort’ within the meaning of the charitable immunity statute. … ‘While there is probably no universally accepted definition of the concept of torts,’ Ankiewicz v. Kinder, 408 Mass. 792, 795 (1990), the defendants’ argument is irreconcilable with a basic feature of a tort action: the breach of a common-law duty owed to another person. … By contrast, an action for civil contempt seeks to redress damages caused by the ‘disobedience of a clear and unequivocal command’ in a court order — here, the obligation to conduct the disputed election in the particular manner ordered by the Superior Court (citation omitted). Birchall, petitioner, 454 Mass. 837, 852 (2009). … Khoda’s contempt action thus was an action to redress the violation of a court order rather than the breach of any duty imposed under the common law of tort,” Justice Elizabeth Napier Dewar wrote for the SJC.

The 17-page decision is Khoda v. Bangladesh Association of New England, Inc., et al., Lawyers Weekly No. 10-062-26.

Click here to read the full text of the opinion.