The Gift That Keeps On Litigating

The Massachusetts Appeals Court affirmed a lower court decision in a matter that relates back to the wishes of the real Paul Giamatti

This is the latest chapter of a long-running saga regarding the administration of certain gifts that President John Adams made in 1822. See DeGiacomo v. Quincy, 476 Mass. 38 (2016); The Woodward Sch. for Girls, Inc. v. Quincy  469 Mass. 151 (2014) (Woodward School). The current dispute involves the ownership of an acre and a half parcel located at 8 Adams Street in the city of Quincy (city). The competing claimants to title are the Adams Temple and School Fund (Adams Fund) and the city, which formerly served as trustee of the Adams Fund. In 2019, the person who succeeded the city as trustee of the Adams Fund (successor trustee) sought judicial approval to sell the land. The city moved to intervene, claiming that the parcel in question was never part of the Adams Fund. While that dispute was playing out, the city recorded an order of taking that seized the property by eminent domain.

Although the city’s taking resolved who owns the property going forward, it did not fully moot the dispute, because resolution of the city’s claim that it already owned the property prior to the taking obviously is critical to how much just compensation, if any, the Adams Fund is owed. Following an assented-to substitution of trustees, a Superior Court judge allowed the current trustee’s motion for judgment on the pleadings based on the preclusive effect of earlier litigation that had treated the property as part of the Adams Fund. Because we agree with the judge that the ownership of the property already had been adjudicated, we affirm.

(Mike Frisch)