The key issue in the case is whether Campbell can compel compliance when the MBTA Communities Act statute itself is silent on her enforcement power and specifically mentions the loss of grant funds as the penalty for noncompliance.
Courts
Posted inOpinion
AG’s settlement with Uber and Lyft leaves big worker protection issues unresolved
Uber and Lyft got what they most wanted – no admission that their drivers are employees. The attorney general’s office got what they felt they needed – the rideshare companies’ commitment to withdraw a ballot question that would have codified drivers’ status as independent contractors. But the settlement left the larger issue of the role of misclassification in the gig economy unresolved.
Posted inCourts
SJC greenlights electric substation in E. Boston
The Conservation Law Foundation and the Chelsea-based advocacy group Greenroots had argued that the state’s Energy Facilities Siting Board approved the East Boston substation location – across the street from a school — without adequately considering “the equitable distribution of energy and environmental benefits and environmental burdens.”
Posted inOpinion
JD Vance has become a laugh line to some, but his stance on divorce is seriously dangerous
Vance’s long list of what women should not be allowed to control keeps getting longer: their bodies, their reproductive rights, who they marry, whether they have children (or cats) and now, whether they can divorce.
Posted inCourts
In case of $70,000 Tiffany ring, SJC judges fully engaged
Justices at the state’s highest court appear open to doing away with the traditional approach to answering a very niche question: should it matter whose fault it is when an engagement goes sour, even with a $70,000 diamond ring on the line?
Posted inPolitics
SJC clerk race upends usual glide path to the ‘velvet coffin’
Races for obscure elected county positions like the Supreme Judicial Court clerk post that was on Tuesday’s primary ballot are usually low-profile affairs that turn on name recognition, but that narrative was disrupted when the race became a proxy battle over the direction of Boston politics.
Posted inCourts
Does fault matter when an engagement ends?
Getting engaged is complicated, saide Boston Globe romance columnist Meredith Goldstein. “It’s tied to romance, especially now, but also it’s a legal thing. It’s a business contract,” she said. “So I think the minute we begin to enter into that contract, it is a very awkward line to dance down. Is this business? Is this pleasure? And who benefits and whose responsibility is it to keep this going?”
Posted inPolitics
Why do we elect a Supreme Judicial Court clerk anyway? The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Why do we elect someone to the obscure, behind-the-scenes administrative post of clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court? The answer starts with the saga of a Black man who escaped slavery in Virginia more than 170 years ago and hoped to find freedom in Boston.
Posted inOpinion
Our judges should reflect the breadth of the legal profession
Attorneys with backgrounds in corporate law or as prosecutors are so overrepresented in Massachusetts courts it should set off alarm bells for anybody who believes in the promise of equal justice in the Commonwealth.
Posted inCourts
High court to decide if covert police recording violates wiretap law
POLICE OFFICERS may be hiding their identity by working undercover, but that doesn’t necessarily give them the right to record suspects covertly. Whether secret cell phone recordings of a drug deal – using increasingly common law enforcement technology – run afoul of the state’s highly protective wiretap statute will now be a question for the […]