Court Opinion

ID: 9925840
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-23 13:05:15.745925+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:38.774699
License: Public Domain

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SJC-13349

            KELECHI LINARDON   vs.   JOHNNY GOMES & another.1

                          January 19, 2024.

   Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts.

     The petitioner, Kelechi Linardon, appeals from a judgment
of a single justice of this court denying her petition pursuant
to G. L. c. 211, § 3. We affirm.

     As best we can discern from the limited record before us,
Linardon filed an application for a criminal complaint in the
Dorchester Division of the Boston Municipal Court Department,
claiming that the respondents stole her car. She then filed a
motion for a change of venue. A clerk-magistrate denied the
motion, but, according to Linardon, he did so after initially
recusing himself from the matter due to a conflict of interest.2
Linardon appealed from the denial of the motion, and that appeal
was entered in the Appeals Court on April 19, 2022. On June 24,
2022, after the court had issued a notice preceding dismissal,
Linardon filed two motions: a motion to "compel the lower court
to send the case file . . . to the Appeals Court," and a motion
for the Appeals Court to transfer the appeal to a single justice
of this court. A single justice in the Appeals Court denied
both motions, essentially on the basis that the court lacked

    1   Terry Mercury.

    2  Notwithstanding Linardon's claims regarding the clerk-
magistrate, the record before us is devoid of any information
regarding the purported recusal -- e.g., any record that the
clerk-magistrate did recuse himself -- other than Linardon's own
statements on that point.
                                                                   2

jurisdiction over the matter.3

     Shortly thereafter, on July 11, 2022, Linardon filed her
G. L. c. 211, § 3, petition in the county court. In the
petition, Linardon asked the court to review the clerk-
magistrate's denial of the motion for a change of venue. She
argued that the clerk-magistrate "violated the laws," and
although the basis for this argument is not entirely clear, it
appears to stem from Linardon's claims regarding the clerk-
magistrate's recusing himself from the case but then
nevertheless ruling on the change of venue motion. The single
justice denied both the petition and Linardon's subsequent
motion for clarification.4

     In her appeal to this court, Linardon raises two issues:
(1) that, as to the underlying merits of the petition, the
clerk-magistrate improperly ruled on the change of venue motion
after having recused himself from the matter; and (2) that the
single justice erred in denying the G. L. c. 211, § 3, petition
on the basis that the petition did not present an extraordinary
circumstance warranting review.5 Linardon's argument regarding
G. L. c. 211, § 3, however is, essentially, an argument on the
underlying merits. That is, Linardon argues that her case
presents an extraordinary circumstance because it involves her
application for a criminal complaint against two individuals
whom she accuses of stealing her car.

     3 In denying the motion to transfer, the judge noted that
whether this court has jurisdiction pursuant to G. L. c. 211,
§ 3, is a matter best left to a single justice of this court to
decide.

     4 The single justice denied Linardon's petition on August
26, 2022, and the motion for clarification on October 3, 2022.
Linardon filed a notice of appeal from the single justice's
judgment on November 8, 2022, and the appeal was entered in this
court on November 9, 2022. In April 2023, this court issued a
notice preceding dismissal. Linardon then asked for and
received an extension of time to file her brief, which she then
filed on August 25, 2023.

     5 Although Linardon styles her pleading in this court as an
application for further appellate review pursuant to Mass.
R. A. P. 27.1, that rule does not apply here, where she is
appealing from a judgment of the single justice on a petition
filed pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3.
                                                                  3

     In a case such as this, where "the single justice exercises
discretion not to reach the merits of a petition, the appeal to
the full court 'is strictly limited to a review of that ruling,'
Commonwealth v. Samuels, 456 Mass. 1025, 1027 n.1 (2010), and
the full court asks only whether the single justice abused his
or her discretion in making that decision." Commonwealth v.
Rodriguez, 484 Mass. 1047, 1049 (2020). This is not the first
time that Linardon has sought relief in this court, and she thus
should be well aware of the requirements and parameters of G. L.
c. 211, § 3. See Linardon v. WoodSpring Suites Boston MA
Saugus, LLC, 490 Mass. 1006 (2022); Linardon v. Secretary of
Hous. & Economic Dev., 490 Mass. 1005 (2022); Linardon v. Boston
Hous. Auth., 487 Mass. 1006 (2021); Linardon v. United States
Dep't of Hous. & Urban Dev., 485 Mass. 1005 (2020). Linardon,
however, nowhere addresses the issue of adequate alternative
remedy, e.g., why the denial of the change of venue motion could
not be raised at the conclusion of the trial court proceedings
rather than at the interlocutory stage at which Linardon has
raised them.

     Moreover, in seeking relief under G. L. c. 211, § 3, it was
Linardon's burden "to create a record -- not merely to allege
but to demonstrate, i.e., to provide copies of the lower court
docket entries and any relevant pleadings, motions, orders,
recordings, transcripts, or other parts of the lower court
record necessary to substantiate [her] allegations -- showing
both a substantial claim of violation of a substantive right and
that the violation could not have been remedied in the normal
course of a trial and appeal or by other available means."
Linardon v. Boston Hous. Auth., 487 Mass. at 1007, quoting Gorod
v. Tabachnick, 428 Mass. 1001, 1001, cert. denied sub nom. Davis
v. Tabachnick, 525 U.S. 1003 (1998). She has not done that
here, where, for example, although she claims that the clerk-
magistrate recused himself, there is nothing in the record, such
as a docket entry or ruling, that reflects this.

     The single justice was well within her authority in
declining to employ this court's extraordinary power of general
superintendence in the circumstances and on the record
presented.

                                   Judgment affirmed.

    The case was submitted on briefs.
    Kelechi Linardon, pro se.