Title: Anderson v. Panagiotopoulos
Citation: N/A
Docket Number: SJC-12567
State: Massachusetts
Issuer: Massachusetts Supreme Court
Date: October 30, 2018

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SJC-12567 
 
SHAUNA ANDERSON  vs.  NIKOLAOS PANAGIOTOPOULOS & another.1 
 
 
 
October 30, 2018. 
 
 
Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts.  
Indigent.  Moot Question.  Practice, Civil, Affidavit, 
Moot case. 
 
 
The petitioner, Shauna Anderson, appeals from an order of a 
single justice of this court dismissing without prejudice her 
petition pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, for failure to pay the 
filing fee or to file a proper affidavit of indigency.  We 
affirm.  
Anderson was a tenant of the respondents, Nikolaos and 
Anastasia Panagiotopoulos, and the defendant in a summary 
process action brought by them against her in the Housing Court.  
On the day scheduled for trial, she made, for the first time, a 
late request for a jury trial, which was denied.  She then filed 
a petition with a single justice of the Appeals Court pursuant 
to G. L. c. 231, § 118, first par., seeking review of that 
interlocutory ruling.  The single justice of the Appeals Court 
denied the petition, as well as a subsequent motion for 
reconsideration. 
Anderson thereafter petitioned a single justice of this 
court for review pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3.  She also filed 
an application to waive the entry fee in the county court, along 
with an affidavit of indigency.  The single justice denied the 
application for a fee waiver without prejudice, on the ground 
that the affidavit of indigency was signed by Anderson's counsel 
                     
 
1 Anastasia Panagiotopoulos. 
 
 
2 
rather than by Anderson, the applicant, herself.  The order of 
the single justice stated that unless a properly executed 
affidavit, signed by Anderson, was filed within fourteen days, 
or the fee was paid, her petition would be dismissed.  Anderson 
did neither, and so the petition was eventually dismissed.  The 
order of dismissal expressly stated that the petition was being 
dismissed without prejudice. 
The summary process action went forward in the Housing 
Court, and a final judgment for possession was eventually 
entered for the Panagiatopouloses, against Anderson.  Anderson 
filed a motion in the Housing Court to stay the execution, which 
was denied.  It appears from our review of the Housing Court 
docket that she has since been evicted. 
It also appears from the Housing Court docket that Anderson 
never appealed from the final judgment of the Housing Court.  
Instead, after that judgment was entered, she filed a late 
notice of appeal from the order of dismissal by the single 
justice in the county court, with a motion for leave to pursue 
that appeal late, arguing that the single justice's dismissal of 
her G. L. c. 211, § 3, petition violated her due process right 
of access to the courts.  The single justice allowed the motion 
to file a late notice of appeal.  The appeal from the single 
justice's order, dismissing her petition without prejudice, is 
thus the sole matter currently before us. 
Anderson has filed a memorandum with this court pursuant to 
S.J.C. Rule 2:21, as amended, 434 Mass. 1301 (2001), which 
requires a petitioner seeking relief from 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."  Based on her memorandum, we affirm the 
dismissal of the G. L. c. 211, § 3, petition for at least three 
reasons. 
First, the petition has become moot because the underlying 
case proceeded to a final judgment in the Housing Court, and the 
eviction has occurred.  See Rasten v. Northeastern Univ., 432 
Mass. 1003 (2000), cert. denied, 531 U.S. 991 (2001). 
Second, the single justice did not err or abuse his 
discretion in dismissing the petition for failure to execute a 
proper affidavit of indigency, nor did he infringe on the 
petitioner's right of access to the courts in doing so.  To 
qualify for a fee waiver, an applicant is required to submit an 
affidavit of indigency "sworn to under oath by the affiant."  
 
 
3 
G. L. c. 261, § 27B.  The language of the preprinted affidavit 
form (and the supplement to the affidavit, where applicable) 
envisions that the affidavit will be signed by the fee waiver 
applicant, under the penalties of perjury, based on his or her 
first-hand knowledge.  He or she avers facts regarding his or 
her personal financial circumstances.  It is an affidavit to be 
signed by a party, not a pleading to be signed by the party's 
counsel.2 
Third, even if we were to consider the underlying merits of 
Anderson's petition, i.e., her challenge to the denial of her 
request for a jury trial, she would fare no better.  She is 
unable to demonstrate the unavailability of adequate alternative 
means of obtaining appellate review.  See S.J.C. Rule 2:21.  She 
has already sought interlocutory review of the ruling in 
question under G. L. c. 231, § 118, first par., and has been 
denied relief by a single justice of the Appeals Court.  She was 
not entitled as of right to additional interlocutory review of 
that ruling pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3.  See Iagatta v. 
Iagatta, 448 Mass. 1016 (2007); Greco v. Plymouth Sav. Bank, 423 
Mass. 1019, 1019-1020 (1996) ("Review under G. L. c. 211, § 3, 
does not lie where review under c. 231, § 118, would suffice").3  
Moreover, there is a statutory right to appeal from a final 
judgment of the Housing Court in a summary process action, see 
                     
 
2 To be clear, the petitioner's failure to file a properly 
signed affidavit in the first instance was not fatal.  The 
single justice did not immediately dismiss her petition.  He 
indicated in his first order what needed to be done to correct 
the situation and gave the petitioner and her counsel fourteen 
days to make what would have been a simple correction.  More 
than a month later, nothing further having been filed, the 
single justice then dismissed the petition without prejudice.  
Because the order of dismissal was without prejudice, the 
petitioner could have refiled her petition at any time, 
accompanied by a properly signed affidavit.  Instead, she waited 
three months after the single justice's initial order, and 
nearly two months after the final order of dismissal, to claim 
this appeal.  In short, the petitioner and her counsel could 
easily have avoided the misfortune of having her petition 
dismissed and the time and expense of this appeal. 
 
 
3 Anderson's petition pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, after a 
single justice of the Appeals Court had already denied her 
petition pursuant to G. L. c. 231, § 118, first par., was in its 
essence a second attempt to obtain review of the challenged 
interlocutory ruling of the trial court. 
 
 
4 
G. L. c. 239, § 5, which she apparently did not pursue.  She 
could have appealed from the Housing Court judgment, in which 
case the judgment of eviction would have been automatically 
stayed pending appeal, see Rule 13 of the Uniform Summary 
Process Rules, and could have argued to the appellate court that 
she was erroneously deprived of a jury trial. 
 
Order of dismissal affirmed. 
 
 
 
The case was submitted on the papers filed, accompanied by 
a memorandum of law. 
 
Ilya Liviz for the petitioner.