Case Name: Jane H. Perkins & others vs. Paul J. Rich & another; Bay State Federal Savings & Loan Association & another, interveners
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1982-01-07
Citations: 385 Mass. 1001
Docket Number: 
Parties: Jane H. Perkins & others vs. Paul J. Rich & another; Bay State Federal Savings & Loan Association & another, interveners.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 385
Pages: 1001–1001

Head Matter:
Jane H. Perkins & others vs. Paul J. Rich & another; Bay State Federal Savings & Loan Association & another, interveners.
January 7, 1982.
Mark A. Michelson (Edward F. Fitzgerald with him) for the plaintiffs.
Frank L. Bridges for Shawmut First County Bank, N.A., intervener.
James Levensohn for Bay State Federal Savings & Loan Association.
The other elected members and members ex officio of the parish committee of the First Parish Unitarian Church of East Bridgewater.
The Attorney General.
Shawmut First County Bank, N.A.

Opinion:
This case is before us on further appellate review following an opinion of the Appeals Court affirming judgments of the Superior Court. Perkins v. Rich, 11 Mass. App. Ct. 317, 324 (1981). At issue is the validity of certain mortgages given to two banks by instruments executed by the defendant Rich, purportedly on behalf of the First Parish Unitarian Church of East Bridgewater (Church).
We need not repeat the facts recited in the opinion of the Appeals Court. We agree with the Appeals Court that the subsidiary facts found by the master show that the Church's parish committee in effect ratified the mortgage transactions. The parish committee should have conducted an investigation, and, if it had done so, it would have discovered the mortgages. The failure of the parish committee to act to disavow the mortgages, of whose existence the committee should have known, constituted a ratification of them.
Judgments of the Superior Court affirmed.