Title: Myrick v. Harvard University

State: massachusetts

Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court

Document:

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SJC-11976 
 
KYL V. MYRICK  vs.  HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 
 
 
March 15, 2016. 
 
 
Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. 
Appeals Court.  Practice, Civil, Stay of proceedings. 
 
 
 
Kyl V. Myrick appeals from a judgment of a single justice 
of this court that denied relief from a ruling of a single 
justice of the Appeals Court in a case that is currently pending 
in the Appeals Court.  We affirm. 
 
 
The case originated in the Superior Court when Myrick filed 
a complaint against Harvard University alleging employment 
discrimination.  A judge in the Superior Court dismissed the 
complaint on Harvard's motion and denied Myrick's subsequent 
attempts to reinstate the case.  Myrick appealed to the Appeals 
Court and, while his appeal was pending, moved to stay the 
appeal so that he could file a new complaint and seek additional 
discovery in the underlying action in the Superior Court.  A 
single justice of the Appeals Court declined to stay the appeal.  
Myrick then requested that a single justice of this court grant 
relief from the Appeals Court single justice's order by either 
staying the appeal in the Appeals Court or remanding the entire 
matter to the Superior Court. 
 
 
On the day this appeal was entered in the full court, 
Myrick filed a two-page memorandum and an appendix of material 
from the record in the county court.  It appears that he filed 
these things in an attempt to comply with S.J.C. Rule 2:21, as 
amended, 434 Mass. 1301 (2001).  That rule does not apply here, 
however.  It applies to cases in which a single justice of this 
court "denies relief from an interlocutory ruling in the trial 
court."  Id.  Here the single justice denied relief from an 
2 
 
order of a single justice of the Appeals Court in an appeal that 
is pending there. 
 
 
That said, we have reviewed Myrick's submission and the 
entire record that was before the single justice in the county 
court, and it is apparent that the single justice neither erred 
nor abused her discretion by denying Myrick's request for 
relief.  Once the Appeals Court single justice denied Myrick's 
request for a stay, Myrick could have sought review of that 
ruling from a panel of the Appeals Court, see Kordis v. Appeals 
Court, 434 Mass. 662 (2001), but did not do so.  It was 
unnecessary, and it would have been especially inappropriate on 
this record, for a single justice of this court to intervene at 
that juncture in what was a routine Appeals Court matter.  The 
question whether to stay an appeal in the Appeals Court is 
quintessentially something for the Appeals Court and its single 
justices to decide and, barring truly exceptional circumstances 
which are not present here, not something that requires the 
extraordinary intervention of this court. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Judgment affirmed.  
 
 
The case was submitted on the papers filed, accompanied by 
a memorandum of law. 
 
 
Kyl V. Myrick, pro se.