Opinion ID: 622319
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Certification to the SJC

Text: Jiten separately challenges the mixed-motive instruction by arguing that the district court should have certified the question to the SJC, an argument that Jiten made below as part of a motion to alter or set aside the judgment. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e), 60(b). Our standard of review here is for abuse of discretion. See Negrón-Almeda v. Santiago, 528 F.3d 15, 25 (1st Cir. 2008) (abuse of discretion review applies to the denial of a motion to alter or amend the judgment); Muñiz v. Rovira-Martinó, 453 F.3d 10, 12 (1st Cir. 2006) (same for a motion to set aside the judgment); U.S. Steel v. M. DeMatteo Const. Co., 315 F.3d 43, 53 (1st Cir. 2002) (same for the district court's decision not to certify a question of law to the SJC). A federal court may, in its discretion, certify to the SJC a question of Massachusetts law that 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 SJC]. Mass. S.J.C.R. 1:03; see also In re Hundley, 603 F.3d 95, 98 (1st Cir. 2010). For the reasons discussed above, this was not an instance in which there was no controlling precedent. In Wynn & Wynn, the SJC established that the mixed-motive framework applies in Chapter 151B cases, and in Haddad, the SJC implicitly affirmed the framework's ongoing -12- validity under Massachusetts law. The district court did not abuse its discretion in declining to certify the question to the SJC.