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Retirement – Stipends – CBA
Where a teacher was paid stipends for serving as “Curriculum Leadership Council Leader” in the Dennis-Yarmouth School District, the stipends she received were not included in a collective bargaining agreement and consequently were not regular compensation.
Social services – Veteran’s benefits
Where a widow applied for veteran’s benefits as a dependent, a decision by the Executive Office of Veterans Services to deny that application should be upheld because the widow’s late husband died while living in Maryland and did not enter or continue his military service in Massachusetts.
Retirement – Accidental disability – Stress
Where a petitioner who worked as a special education paraprofessional filed an application to retire for accidental disability, a decision by the State Board of Retirement denying her application should be affirmed because the limited record presented does not establish that the stresses of the petitioner’s job were “uncommon” enough to qualify her for accidental disability retirement under [...]
Administrative – Abuser registry
Where the Disabled Persons Protection Commission has decided to place the petitioner, a residential counselor, on the DPPC Abuser Registry, the DPPC has not met its burden of proving by a preponderance of the evidence that the petitioner committed “registrable abuse” for purposes of G.L.c. 19C, §15, so the DPPC may not place her on the registry.
Retirement – Option election – Alzheimer’s disease
Where the Quincy Retirement Board denied a request to modify a petitioner’s retirement option under G.L.c. 32, §12, from option (a) to option (b), the board’s decision to deny that request should be reversed because the petitioner filed his retirement paperwork while lacking the capacity to understand the nature and consequences of his actions.
Retirement – Teacher – Prior service
Where the Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System denied a petitioner’s application to purchase prior service for her time as an employee at the Home for Little Wanderers, the petitioner was not “engaged in teaching pupils,” so the denial of the application should be affirmed.
Retirement – Termination of benefits – Annual forms
Where a petitioner’s accidental disability retirement benefits were terminated after she failed to provide an annual statement of earned income for the years 2019, 2020 and 2021, the petitioner is not entitled to retroactive payments.
Retirement – Group 2
Where the State Board of Retirement denied a petitioner’s application for Group 2 classification, that decision should be affirmed because the petitioner did not prove by a preponderance of the evidence that she spent more than 50 percent of her time caring for developmentally disabled people.
Retirement – Teacher – STEM coordinator
Where a teacher agreed to step in as her school district’s science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) coordinator for a few years, the pay she received for that position should be counted as regular compensation.
Licenses and permits – Family child care – Spouse
Where a petitioner’s application for a family child care license was denied by the Department of Early Education based on her husband’s 2015 criminal convictions related to the unlawful possession of a firearm, the department should reconsider its decision and find the petitioner’s husband to be a suitable household member because there have not been any firearms at the home since the convic[...]
Retirement – Teacher – ‘Retirement Plus’
Where the Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System denied a petitioner’s request to participate in the benefits program known as Retirement Plus, that decision should be affirmed because of the petitioner’s failure to provide MTRS with an enrollment “election” by the middle of 2001, when Retirement Plus came into effect.
Retirement – Contract service – DOC vendor
Where a petitioner sought to purchase contract service for the time he worked as an employee of a vendor for the Department of Correction, a decision by the State Board of Retirement to deny his application should be affirmed because the vendor was not established or operated by the commonwealth, nor did it function as an instrumentality of the commonwealth.
Verdicts & Settlements
- Injury during baby’s adenoidectomy leads to stroke
- Construction worker’s hand caught in cement mixer
- Worker trapped in freezer, dies during steam cleaning
- Pedestrian, 69, hit by motor vehicle while in crosswalk
- Four-vehicle pileup leaves driver with spinal cord injury
- Nursing home staff blamed for kidney-failure death
- Pharmacy’s late delivery blamed for patient’s death
- Man, 25, drowns after swimming lesson at fitness club
Opinion Digests
- Jurisdiction – Forum selection clause – Non-signatory
- Criminal – Responsibility
- Attorneys – Lien
- Landlord and tenant – Default judgment
- Zoning – Constructive grant – Comprehensive permit
- Fraud – False Claims Act – Settlement share
- Civil practice – Discovery – Cybersecurity
