NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal 

revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound 

volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical 

error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of 

Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 

Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA 02108-1750; (617) 557-

1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us

SJC-12453

HANEEFAH YAHYA vs. ROCKTOP PARTNERS I, LP.

May 25, 2018.

Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts.

Summary Process, Appeal. Practice, Civil, Summary process, 

Default, Execution, Stay of proceedings.

Haneefah Yahya appeals from a judgment of the county court 

denying, without a hearing, her petition for relief under G. L. 

c. 211, § 3. In her petition, Yahya sought a stay of execution 

of a default judgment issued against her in a summary process 

action in the Boston Municipal Court (BMC) commenced by Rocktop

Partners I, LP (Rocktop). On June 27, 2016, a single justice of 

this court granted a stay of execution pending the BMC's 

resolution of certain outstanding motions that were scheduled 

for hearing the following day. At the hearing on June 28, 2016, 

a judge in the BMC denied Yahya's motion to waive the appeal 

bond, denied her motion for relief from judgment, and granted an 

extension of time in which to file a notice of appeal. The BMC 

docket indicates that Yahya appealed to the Appellate Division 

of the BMC as to the denial of the motion to waive the appeal 

bond and that, on or about January 12, 2017, the Appellate 

Division issued a decision, apparently affirming the denial.1 On 

 

1 Yahya states that she has since posted the bond. The 

record is ambiguous on this point: it contains several copies of 

the BMC docket, some of which indicate that the bond was posted, 

and others of which do not. Yahya states that she received a 

receipt for the appeal bond, but a copy of the receipt itself is 

not included in the record before us. On the other hand, 

nothing in the record suggests that any order has entered 

dismissing Yahya's summary process appeal. See G. L. c. 239, 

§ 5 (h) ("If the defendant fails to file with the clerk of the 
2

October 30, 2017, Rocktop filed a motion to reissue the 

execution for possession. That motion was allowed on November 

7, 2017, and stayed until November 14, 2017. Yahya then filed, 

in the county court, a supplement to her petition, challenging 

the allowance of Rocktop's motion and urging that the default 

judgment and execution be vacated. A different single justice 

stayed the execution pending a decision on Yahya's petition. 

After Rocktop filed a response, the same single justice denied 

Yahya's petition without a hearing and vacated the stay.2 We 

affirm the denial of relief.

Yahya has filed a memorandum and appendix pursuant to 

S.J.C. Rule 2:21, as amended, 434 Mass. 1301 (2001), which 

requires a party challenging an interlocutory ruling of the 

trial court to "set forth the reasons why review of the trial 

court decision cannot adequately be obtained on appeal from any 

final adverse judgment in the trial court or by other available 

means." That rule does not apply, as Yahya is not challenging 

an interlocutory ruling of the trial court. Nonetheless, it is 

clear that the judgment of the BMC is subject to review in the 

ordinary appellate process. "Our general superintendence power 

under G. L. c. 211, § 3, is extraordinary and to be exercised 

sparingly, not as a substitute for the normal appellate process 

or merely to provide an additional layer of appellate review 

after the normal process has run its course." Bishay v. Land 

Ct. Dep't of the Trial Ct., 477 Mass. 1032, 1033 (2017), quoting

Fennick v. Kittredge, 460 Mass. 1012, 1012 (2011).

 

court rendering the judgment, the amount of bond . . . required 

by the decision of the reviewing court within [five] days from 

receipt of notice of the decision, the appeal from the judgment 

shall be dismissed"). Cf. Wallace v. PNC Bank, 478 Mass. 1020, 

1021 (2018), quoting Matter of an Appeal Bond (No. 1), 428 Mass. 

1013, 1013 (1998) (proper course to challenge Appellate Division 

decision affirming denial of waiver of appeal bond is "to refuse 

to pay the bond, suffer the dismissal of [the] summary process 

appeal, and then appeal to the Appeals Court . . . from the 

order of dismissal"). If Yahya has posted the bond, and if her 

appeal is otherwise in procedural order, which we are unable to 

determine on this record, we trust that the BMC will promptly 

assemble the record and that the summary process appeal will 

proceed in the usual course.

2 Yahya also filed a motion to stay the execution in this 

court. Because of our disposition today, we need not act on the 

motion.
3

Judgment affirmed.

The case was submitted on briefs.

Robert C. Johnson, Jr., for the petitioner.

Patrick J. McDonald for the respondent.