BOSTON - The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, the state’s highest court, this week upheld the murder conviction of Michael A. McCarthy in the death of Bella Bond, a 2-year-old girl whose body was found four years ago in a trash bag on the shore of Deer Island in Winthrop. The court, in a 25-page opinion, dismissed McCarthy’s bid for a new trial after a review of the 2017 trial found no .
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) today weighed in on the zoning permissibility of short-term rentals, a much-contested and important area of concern.
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On February 26, 2021, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) clarified the standard to be used for factual causation in multiple defendant tort actions. The SJC’s opinion in
Doull v. Foster, 487 Mass. 1 (2021), changed the standard for factual causation from the confusing “substantial contributing factor” test to the more straightforward “but for” causation standard.
The SJC differentiated cases with multiple sufficient causes, such as asbestos and other toxic tort matters, due to the difficulty in establishing “which particular exposures were necessary to bring about the harm.” [
Doull at p. 14]. The Court did, however, leave open the possibility that it may also replace the “substantial factor” test in those cases as well. This potential for a new causation standard has created tremendous uncertainty as to which standard will be used for toxic tort cases in Massachusetts going forward.
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Thank You! Law360 (June 3, 2021, 4:20 PM EDT)