Opinion ID: 200257
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Request for Certification

Text: 35 Certification of a question of Massachusetts law to the Supreme Judicial Court is proper when the question is determinative of the cause then pending in the certifying court and as to which it appears to the certifying court there is no controlling precedent in the decisions of [the Supreme Judicial Court]. Mass. S.J.C.R. 1:03. See Nett ex rel. Nett v. Bellucci, 269 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir.2001). 36 The district court's decision as to whether or not to certify is reviewed for abuse of discretion. As USS correctly notes, the Supreme Court has observed that certification is particularly appropriate where the question at issue is novel, and the law unsettled. Lehman Bros. v. Schein, 416 U.S. 386, 391, 94 S.Ct. 1741, 40 L.Ed.2d 215 (1974). However, there is nothing novel or unsettled about Massachusetts law on the rights, if any, of a subcontractor who did not substantially perform under his contract, to recover payment from a general contractor for work performed by the subcontractor before he walked off the job. In the recent case of Peabody N.E., Inc., 689 N.E.2d at 774, the Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the well-established principle that contractors cannot recover on the contract itself without showing complete and strict performance of all its terms, and that a contractor can recover under a theory of quantum meruit only if he can prove both substantial performance of the contract and an endeavor on his part in good faith to perform fully. Id. at 779-80. This is a recent and unambiguous statement of Massachusetts law. There was no abuse of discretion in the district court's denial of USS's request for certification.