WANDA KARINA HERRERA v. KRYSTYNA OSOWSKA (2026)

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

The plaintiff, Wanda Karina Herrera, appeals from the dismissal of a Superior Court action she filed seeking to remove or transfer a Housing Court matter previously adjudicated in favor of the defendant, Krystyna Osowska, to the Superior Court. We affirm.

Background. In November 2021, the defendant commenced a postforeclosure summary process action in the Housing Court against the plaintiff. In January 2023, after a bench trial, a Housing Court judge entered judgment for possession of the subject premises in favor of the defendant. Although the plaintiff filed a timely notice of appeal from the Housing Court judgment of possession, her appeal was dismissed for failure to pay use and occupancy in April 2023, and execution issued about one week thereafter.¹ From May 2023 until September 2024, the defendant filed several motions in the Housing Court to stay the execution, as well as appeals to single justices of this court from orders denying her motions. On September 18, 2024, a Housing Court judge issued orders that included a denial of the plaintiff's motion to remove or transfer the case to the Superior Court. On October 1, 2024, the plaintiff filed the same motion in the Superior Court. The Superior Court clerk's office accepted the filing, which included the entire record of the Housing Court action, after a “cursory review of the language of the pleading,” and docketed it as a complaint. On December 23, 2024, a Superior Court judge dismissed the matter sua sponte.

Discussion. “We review the grant of a motion to dismiss de novo, accepting as true all well-pleaded facts alleged in the complaint, [and] drawing all reasonable inferences therefrom in the plaintiff's favor ․” Lanier v. President & Fellows of Harvard College, 490 Mass. 37, 43 (2022). A sua sponte dismissal entered without notice may be affirmed, but only “[i]f it is crystal clear that the plaintiff cannot prevail and that amending the complaint will be futile ․” (citation omitted). Chute v. Walker, 281 F.3d 314, 319 (1st Cir. 2002). “The party defending the dismissal must show that ‘the allegations contained in the complaint, taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, are patently meritless and beyond all hope of redemption’ ” (citation omitted). Id.

Here, the plaintiff cites no statute or rule permitting removal of a case from the Housing Court to the Superior Court. Her reliance on G. L. c. 231, § 102C, and G. L. c. 231, § 104, is unavailing. Section 102C applies to the transfer of civil actions from the Superior Court to the District or Boston Municipal Courts because of jurisdictional limits based on the reasonable expectation of monetary damages. See G. L. c. 231, § 102C. Section 104 applies to removal of a case from the District Court to the Superior Court, again based on the jurisdictional amount of anticipated damages for a claim, counterclaim, or crossclaim. A party must request removal within twenty-five days after the service of the pleading. A timely removal vacates a default judgment but not a final judgment on the merits. See G. L. c. 231, § 104. Neither section of the statute provides a procedure for a transfer or removal from the Housing Court to the Superior Court after a final judgment, nor would removal in this situation result in vacating the Housing Court's judgment of possession.

The plaintiff also argues that, in the absence of a specific statute, the rules of civil procedure permit her case to be transferred to the Superior Court. See Mass. R. Civ. P. 81 (e), 365 Mass. 841 (1974) (where no procedure is prescribed, court shall proceed in any lawful manner). She asserts that the Housing Court lacked jurisdiction over the eviction because the defendant attempted to purchase the premises after a procedurally flawed foreclosure, did not acquire valid title, and therefore did not have standing to bring the summary process action.² The plaintiff principally relies on Konstantopoulos v. Whately, 384 Mass. 123, 129 (1981), where the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) held that an action seeking injunctive and declaratory relief was not properly before the Probate Court because it lacked subject matter jurisdiction. The SJC remanded the matter to the Probate Court with instructions that the probate judge “ask the Chief Administrative Justice to transfer the case, or the judge, or both to the Superior Court.” Id. at 138. See Skawski v. Greenfield Investors Prop. Dev. LLC, 473 Mass. 580, 591 (2016) (transfer is appropriate remedy where Housing Court lacks jurisdiction); Arno v. Commonwealth, 457 Mass. 434, 446 (2010). Here, in contrast, the Housing Court had subject matter jurisdiction over the complaint for summary process against the plaintiff. See Bank of Am., N.A. v. Rosa, 466 Mass. 613, 626 (2013) (Housing Court has jurisdiction over challenges to title in postforeclosure summary process action, including those previously required to be brought in Superior Court). In addition, the present case involves a final judgment in a fully litigated case, whereas the relief granted by the Probate Court in Konstantopoulos, 384 Mass. at 125, was a temporary restraining order after a request for a preliminary injunction. We thus conclude that the record in this case provided neither a legal nor a factual basis for an administrative transfer from the Housing Court to the Superior Court. See Harker v. Holyoke, 390 Mass. 555, 559-560 (1983) (Housing Court judgment may only be attacked by filing direct appeal).

To the extent the plaintiff frames her Superior Court action as an independent case collaterally attacking the Housing Court judgment, it was barred by principles of res judicata. Considerations of fairness and judicial economy bar a party from relitigating a claim based on three elements: “(1) the identity or privity of the parties to the present and prior actions, (2) identity of the cause of action, and (3) prior final judgment on the merits” (citation omitted). Laramie v. Philip Morris USA Inc., 488 Mass. 399, 405 (2021). Here, the Superior Court case had identical parties to the Housing Court case. The cases arose from the same transaction and set of operative facts. Id. at 411. Finally, the Housing Court case was fully litigated and concluded with a final judgment, after trial on the merits, of possession for the defendant. We thus conclude that the plaintiff was barred by res judicata from relitigating her Housing Court claim in the Superior Court. See DaLuz v. Department of Correction, 434 Mass. 40, 46 (2001).

Conclusion. This case presents the rare instance in which, reviewing the allegations in the Superior Court filing in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the complaint fails to identify a legal theory of recovery and is so manifestly frivolous that amending the complaint would have been futile. See Chute, 281 F.3d at 319. See also Talmo v. Zoning Bd. of Appeals of Framingham, 93 Mass. App. Ct. 626, 629 (2018) (court has power and obligation to address jurisdictional issues and dismiss cases without jurisdiction). The Superior Court judge therefore properly dismissed the plaintiff's motion to remove or transfer the Housing Court case to the Superior Court.

Judgment affirmed.

FOOTNOTES

1.   A single justice of this court denied the plaintiff's request to reinstate the appeal.

2.   After trial, the Housing Court judge found that the mortgage holder conducted the foreclosure “in strict compliance with the provisions of G. L. c. 244, §§ 11-15,” the plaintiff subsequently purchased the property, and the plaintiff was the lawful owner of the property. We see no basis in the record to question the judge's findings, and, in any event, they are not subject to appellate review because the plaintiff did not perfect her appeal from the Housing Court judgment of possession in favor of the defendant.