Putignano v. Treasurer & Receiver General

774 N.E.2d 1157, 55 Mass. App. Ct. 828, 2002 Mass. App. LEXIS 1173
CourtMassachusetts Appeals Court
DecidedSeptember 13, 2002
DocketNo. 00-P-559
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 774 N.E.2d 1157 (Putignano v. Treasurer & Receiver General) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Appeals Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Putignano v. Treasurer & Receiver General, 774 N.E.2d 1157, 55 Mass. App. Ct. 828, 2002 Mass. App. LEXIS 1173 (Mass. Ct. App. 2002).

Opinion

Kass, J.

In her complaint, Josephine Putignano alleges that, without negligence on her part, she was wrongly deprived of land by the registration of the town of Yarmouth as the owner of that land (“locus”). She claims compensation under G. L. [829]*829c. 185, § 101, against the land registration assurance fund established under G. L. c. 185, § 99. We decide that prior proceedings have established preclusively against Putignano that she was negligent in the maintenance of her land claim and affirm the judgment in favor of the Treasurer and Receiver General (“Treasurer”).

To illuminate the basis for our decision, it is necessary to describe the errant and protracted course (not due to any apparent fault of the Land Court or the Superior Court) of prior proceedings in regrettably tedious detail. The antecedents of the controversy lie in a petition that Yarmouth filed with the Land Court in April, 1973, to confirm and register title to the locus, which the town had acquired through tax title proceedings. Yarmouth’s registration petition was docketed as No. 37845. Dominic John Putignano, as trustee of the Dominic John Putig-nano Trust, filed an objection to the registration petition, claiming an interest in the locus.

Ten years later, on July 19, 1983, the trust’s lawyer filed with the Land Court a withdrawal of his appearance and a withdrawal of his client’s objections.2 The occasion of those withdrawals, as Josephine Putignano conceded in a brief in an earlier proceeding before the Appeals Court, was to facilitate conveyance of the locus by Yarmouth to the New Testament Baptist Church of Yarmouth. Josephine Putignano became a successor in interest, in her own right and as executrix of her husband’s estate, to the Putignano trust.

Later in 1983, on October 6, Yarmouth filed a motion stating that the lot that comprised the locus “is now proper for registration . . . whereas the title to [three other lots] involves questions which are not applicable to the [locus] and in relation to which further proceedings will be necessary.” Accordingly, Yarmouth asked to be allowed to amend its petition “severing the same into two cases . . . and transferring to a new case all matters relating to [the locus] . . . .” The Land Court allowed the motion and docketed the severed case as No. 41416. The Putignano interests have not denied actual notice of the motion to sever or of the severance. While decisions issued pursuant to [830]*830rule 1:28 of the Appeals Court, as amended, 46 Mass. App. Ct. 1001 (1998), may not be cited as authority in unrelated cases, we take note of a decision related factually and legally to a subsequent stage of the same controversy. See Lyons v. Labor Relations Commn., 19 Mass. App. Ct. 562, 566 (1985). Courts take note of their own dockets. Miller v. Norton, 353 Mass. 395, 399 (1967). Contrast Horner v. Boston Edison Co., 45 Mass. App. Ct. 139, 141 (1998).

There is an undated document in the record appendix by which Mr. Victor G. Fields, who throughout had acted as counsel for the Putignano interests, moves to “confirm the appearance of Josephine Putignano” in case No. 37845 on the ground that the Putignano trust had dissolved by its terms on June 18, 1982, rendering Mr. Field’s withdrawal of the trust’s objection a nullity. Also included in the record appendix, again undated, is a document that purports to move to file late objections to the registration petition in case No. 37845.3 In the meantime, registration case No. 41416, in which the dispute over the locus had lodged, proceeded at measured pace to a decree in favor of Yarmouth that was entered on May 6, 1988. On July 26, 1988, Putignano filed a petition to vacate the registration decree (see note 3, supra), in which she (through counsel) makes the remarkable statement: “It was intended and expected that the[] [late-filed] objections would be noted on the severed case aforementioned. ” In addition to this suggestion that it was the business of the Land Court clerk to cross-file to case No. 41416 motions on which Putignano’s counsel had placed the docket number, 37845, of the off-locus registration case, the petition to vacate the registration decree asserts that Yarmouth, through its counsel, and the New Testament Baptist Church (which received a deed from the town after the registration decree was issued) were aware of the Putignano claim to the locus and had euchred Putignano out of her land through docket number sleight of hand.

The petition to vacate the decree of registration on these' [831]*831grounds met with no success in the Land Court nor in a subsequent appeal to this court. In the unpublished decision in that appeal, entered on February 1, 1990,4 we stated that the Putignano interests “do not currently assert, nor did they do so below, that they did not have actual notice of the motion [to sever] or the severance. . . . The result in this case, therefore, can be traced directly to the [Putignanos’] own omissions and their failure to meet their obligation to assert their claim. See Tetrault v. Bruscoe, 398 Mass. 454, 462-463 (1986). . . . Neither the town nor the Church intentionally or recklessly concealed the [Putignanos’] interest, if any, from the Land Court. Compare State St. Bank & Trust Co. v. Beale, 353 Mass. 103, 103-104 (1967); Kozdras v. Land/Vest Properties, Inc., 382 Mass. 34, 40-43 (1980). Contrast Christian v. Mooney, 400 Mass. 753, 763 (1987), appeal dismissed and cert. denied [sub nom. Christian v. Bewkes, 484 U.S. 1053] (1988); Snow v. E. L. Dauphinais, Inc., 13 Mass. App. Ct. 330, 333 (1982).” As to the town and its counsel, Mr. John C. Creney, the claims of fraud through intentional concealment (of the severed registration case from Putignano) in the action from which this appeal comes were foreclosed by familiar principles of issue preclusion. See Fay v. Federal Natl. Mortgage Assn., 419 Mass. 782, 789-791 (1995); Boyd v. Jamaica Plain Co-op. Bank, 7 Mass. App. Ct. 153, 159-160 (1979). See also Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 27 (1982).5 The Superior Court judge so ruled.

Putignano approaches the instant case as if the Land Court assurance fund, which, under G. L. c. 185, § 100, is managed, kept invested, and disbursed by the Treasurer, is an absolute guarantor against loss of rights in land through the registration process. Having, as she points out, exhausted her remedies against the town and its servants, she claims rights under G. L. c. 185, § 101 (as amended by St. 1987, c. 710), which, so far as material, provides:

“[A] person who, without negligence on his part, is [832]

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Bluebook (online)
774 N.E.2d 1157, 55 Mass. App. Ct. 828, 2002 Mass. App. LEXIS 1173, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/putignano-v-treasurer-receiver-general-massappct-2002.