2026-09-10 · Massachusetts · Courts

What happened. The Massachusetts Appeals Court held that Mass. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(9) required dismissal of a developer's Land Court action that duplicated a pending Superior Court action brought by five condominium trusts — but that the dismissal should have been without prejudice.

Woodlands View LLC v. Ferree, docket 25-P-187, was decided 2 April 2026 as a Rule 23.0 memorandum and order.¹

The sequence

• 4 June 2024 — five condominium trusts sued Woodlands in Superior Court.
• 12 June 2024 — eight days later, Woodlands sued more than thirty individually named unit owners and trustees in the Land Court over substantially the same issues.
• An amended complaint eventually named over 300 parties in interest.

The rule

Rule 12(b)(9) bars claim-splitting where identical parties pursue two actions on the same operative facts before the first concludes. Allowing both to proceed risked “competing and potentially inconsistent adjudications.”

The “same parties” argument failed

Woodlands argued that plaintiffs added by amendment in the Superior Court case were not the “same parties.” The court held that Rule 15(c) relation-back applies to added parties and that “amendment practice is liberally construed.”

The disposition

Vacated and remanded with instructions to enter dismissal without prejudice, preserving Woodlands' right to litigate its claims in the Superior Court action. The court also cited G.L. c. 231 §51.

1. Woodlands View LLC v. Ferree, Mass. App. Ct. 25-P-187 (2 April 2026), full opinion text ↩
2. Hyman v. Conway, Mass. App. Ct. 24-P-168 (18 March 2025), full opinion text ↩