This is a quick note on a new Chapter 93A decision by the Massachusetts Appeals Court that I want to highlight for a couple of reasons. Chapter 93A, for those readers from out of state, is Massachusetts’ consumer protection and unfair business practices statute. The statute is a very powerful weapon in the right case, for two reasons. First, it offers a prevailing plaintiff an opportunity to recover multiple damages and attorneys fees. Second, it creates a sort of amorphous cause of action that encompasses a range of conduct that might either not be prosecutable under traditional common law causes of action or that might support only a weak case if prosecuted under traditional common law causes of action. About twenty five years ago, in a condominium defect case that I was defending, I had a judge explain to the parties that he didn’t like the Chapter 93A claim that was included in the complaint because, in his day as a practicing lawyer, you actually had to be able to plead and prove the specific elements of a claim to prevail, whereas Chapter 93A allowed lawyers to prosecute much more amorphous cases. That is still true, to some extent, but development of the case law on Chapter 93A over the past two decades has filled in much of the detail of what a successful Chapter 93A claim has to look like and such claims have far more defined parameters now than they did when I first started litigating Chapter 93A cases.

This latest ruling fits right in with the idea that judicial decisions over the years have cabined the appropriate scope of a Chapter 93A claim. This decision addresses a particular issue that comes up quite often, given the extent to which modern business life routinely crosses state lines: to what extent must the conduct in question occur in Massachusetts for a Chapter 93A claim to satisfy the statutory requirements? The answer, by the way, is pretty substantially, as this case points out.