Background
Haverhill Stem LLC (Stem) is a state-licensed cannabis retailer whose sole manager and member, Caroline Pineau, leased 124 Washington Street in downtown Haverhill adjacent to a building owned by defendants Lloyd Jennings and Brad Brooks. Before Stem took possession, the defendants had paid $30,000 to build a shared deck as part of a settlement with the prior owner of Pineau’s property. From the outset of Stem’s lease, Jennings and Brooks demanded that Pineau reimburse them $30,000 and grant them use of the deck—demands they eventually escalated to over $75,000. When Pineau refused, the defendants pursued a sustained campaign of threats and intimidation: leading her down a “long, dark hallway” to demand payment; telling her she had “a $30,000 vendetta” against her; spreading false rumors to the mayor, city council members, and other community leaders that Pineau owed them money; threatening to “destroy” her and “take everything from her”; threatening a RICO lawsuit they never filed; calling state and federal regulators to trigger inspection visits; and, in one incident, parking outside Pineau’s home and staring her down as they slowly drove past. The defendants also filed two Land Court challenges to the city’s zoning ordinance and the special permit for Stem’s dispensary. The resulting delays cost the plaintiffs an estimated million dollars per month in lost revenue over six to eight months.
Pineau and Stem sued in Superior Court in June 2019, asserting claims under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act (MCRA), G.L. c. 12, § 11I, unfair business practices under G.L. c. 93A, civil conspiracy, and defamation. A December 2024 jury trial produced verdicts for Stem on the MCRA claim against Jennings, for Pineau on defamation against both defendants, and for Pineau on civil conspiracy against both defendants; the c. 93A claim resulted in a defense verdict. The trial judge denied the defendants’ post-trial motions and awarded Stem $178,743.25 in attorney’s fees and costs under the MCRA’s mandatory fee-shifting provision. The defendants appealed on three grounds: that the absolute litigation privilege shielded all their statements and conduct; that the verdicts were legally deficient; and that the fee award was time-barred and excessive.
The Court’s Holding
Affirmed in part, reversed in part. Chief Judge Blake, writing for a three-judge panel, reversed the civil conspiracy judgment but affirmed the MCRA verdict, defamation verdict, and attorney’s fee award.
Absolute litigation privilege. This was the third time the Haverhill Stem dispute had come before the Appeals Court: in Stem I, 99 Mass. App. Ct. 626 (2021), and Stem II, 102 Mass. App. Ct. 1121 (2023), two separate panels rejected the defendants’ privilege defense, and the Supreme Judicial Court twice denied further appellate review. Under the law of the case doctrine, the court declined to revisit those rulings absent substantially different evidence or a contrary controlling decision—neither of which the defendants supplied. On the independent merits, the court held that the absolute litigation privilege—which shields communications made in connection with judicial proceedings—did not reach the defendants’ conduct. The bulk of the threats and false statements were made not in court filings or at hearings but in darkened hallways, coffee shops, Stem’s premises, and outside Pineau’s home. Demanding $30,000, threatening financial destruction, spreading false debt rumors through the community, and menacing Pineau at her residence bore no reasonable relation to the defendants’ Land Court litigation or the special permit proceeding and thus fell outside the privilege entirely.
Civil conspiracy reversed. The trial judge instructed the jury that the underlying tort for the conspiracy was “extortion—coercion by improper means that is designed to reap an economic reward.” The court held that extortion is not a recognized stand-alone civil tort in Massachusetts. The defendants’ conduct could have been actionable as an unfair business practice under c. 93A—the statute through which the court in Stem I had described extortionate conduct as cognizable—but the jury found for the defendants on the c. 93A count. Because civil conspiracy requires proof of an underlying tortious act, and the instruction tied the conspiracy verdict to a theory whose only actionable form had failed, the conspiracy judgment could not stand. The court noted that had the instruction identified the MCRA violation or defamation (both of which the plaintiffs won) as the predicate tort, the verdict could have been preserved—but no such instruction was given, and the defendants did not object to verdict inconsistency before the jury was discharged, waiving that argument.
Attorney’s fees affirmed. A motion for statutory fees under a civil rights statute is not a motion to alter or amend judgment under Mass. R. Civ. P. 59(e) and is not subject to that rule’s deadline. Stem’s motion, filed 29 days after the corrected judgment, was timely, particularly given the MCRA’s mandatory fee-shifting and the defendants’ notice of that obligation throughout the litigation. On the amount, the claims were sufficiently intertwined that the judge was not required to apportion fees by claim, and fee awards need not be proportionate to the damages recovered where, as here, the result serves important civil rights purposes and the opposing party’s aggressive litigation strategy drove up costs significantly.
Key Takeaways
- The absolute litigation privilege shields communications made in connection with judicial proceedings, including testimony at municipal hearings and Land Court filings. It does not immunize threats, extortionate demands, or false statements of fact made in private settings—no matter how closely related lawsuits are pending—because those communications bear no reasonable relation to any relief the pending litigation could yield.
- Civil conspiracy requires a recognized underlying civil tort. Where the instruction ties the conspiracy to “extortion”—actionable under c. 93A but not as a freestanding common-law claim—and the c. 93A claim fails, the conspiracy verdict falls with it. Practitioners should ensure conspiracy instructions identify a clearly cognizable underlying wrong (MCRA violation, defamation) rather than relying on the extortion label.
- An entity may assert MCRA claims for interference with its property and permit rights through threats directed at its sole agent or manager; acts against the agent necessarily affect the corporation, and the MCRA’s definition of “person” includes corporations and limited partnerships.
- MCRA attorney’s fee petitions are not governed by the Rule 59(e) ten-day deadline; they may be filed within a reasonable time after judgment, and fee awards are not required to be proportionate to damages recovered where the litigation serves important civil rights purposes.
- A party asserting jury verdict inconsistency must raise the objection before the jury is discharged; failure to do so constitutes waiver on appeal.
Why It Matters
For Massachusetts civil rights and business litigators, Haverhill Stem III draws a clear line around the absolute litigation privilege. A defendant who files a lawsuit cannot convert a separate, private coercion campaign into privileged conduct. The privilege applies only to communications that bear a reasonable relation to an actual judicial proceeding and to relief the proceeding could plausibly yield. For cannabis retailers and other businesses that regularly face opposition from neighboring property owners at permit hearings, the case also confirms that combining Land Court challenges with private threats and community defamation—common harassment tactics against dispensaries—will not gain litigation privilege protection for the out-of-court conduct.
The civil conspiracy reversal is a cautionary note for plaintiffs’ counsel running multi-theory cases. Identifying the predicate tort with precision in jury instructions is essential: where “extortion” was the label used, the loss of the c. 93A claim took the conspiracy verdict with it. Anchoring the conspiracy to MCRA violations or defamation—claims on which the plaintiffs actually prevailed—would have preserved the verdict. The attorney’s fee guidance benefits MCRA practitioners more broadly: the MCRA’s mandatory fee-shifting survives a reduced damages finding, the fee motion timeline is flexible, and courts will look at the full scope and complexity of the litigation—not just the final damages number—to assess reasonableness.