JACQUES E. MITRI v. CHRISTINA C. FERGUSON MARGE & Others.

NOTICE: Summary decisions issued by the Appeals Court pursuant to M.A.C. Rule
23.0, as appearing in 97 Mass. App. Ct. 1017 (2020) (formerly known as rule 1:28,
as amended by 73 Mass. App. Ct. 1001 [2009]), are primarily directed to the parties
and, therefore, may not fully address the facts of the case or the panel's
decisional rationale. Moreover, such decisions are not circulated to the entire
court and, therefore, represent only the views of the panel that decided the case.
A summary decision pursuant to rule 23.0 or rule 1:28 issued after February 25,
2008, may be cited for its persuasive value but, because of the limitations noted
above, not as binding precedent. See Chace v. Curran, 71 Mass. App. Ct. 258, 260
n.4 (2008).

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

APPEALS COURT

25-P-121

JACQUES E. MITRI

vs.

CHRISTINA C. FERGUSON MARGE & others.1

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

The plaintiff, Jacques E. Mitri, appeals from the dismissal

of his complaint filed in the Superior Court in 2024 against the

defendants. The complaint was dismissed on the ground that it

violated a 2019 Superior Court order prohibiting the plaintiff

from filing new actions challenging his mortgage foreclosure and

eviction without prior authorization. We affirm.

Background. The plaintiff has spent well over a decade

litigating and relitigating, in the Housing Court, the Land

Court, the Superior Court, the Federal courts -- and in this

court -- the foreclosure on his mortgage in 2011 and his

1Michael C. Marge, Louise M. Ferguson, Timothy J. Ferguson,
and Brendan T. Ferguson.
subsequent eviction from a single-family residence in Holliston.

In one of his many lawsuits, filed in the Middlesex County

Superior Court in July 2019 (No. 1981CV-01921), the plaintiff

sued Aurora Loan Services, LLC, Aurora Bank, FSB, and Nationstar

Mortgage LLC, alleging "an unlawful foreclosure" on his home. A

Superior Court judge dismissed the complaint and denied several

postjudgment motions. Thereafter, in an order entered on August

27, 2019 (2019 order), after denying yet another postjudgment

motion, the judge added, "Unless he receives prior authority

from this court, plaintiff is also prohibited from filing a new

action in this court based on this same dispute."

On July 18, 2024, without obtaining prior authorization,

the plaintiff filed the current complaint against the

defendants, alleging claims of "scam," mortgage fraud, unlawful

foreclosure, title theft, violation of G. L. c. 93A, violation

of what the plaintiff characterizes as a lis pendens restraining

order,2 violation of a stay-away order, violation of the COVID-19

foreclosure moratorium, trespass, harassment, "assault in the

house of worship," "intentional and emotional distress," and

2 A memorandum of lis pendens is not a restraining order.
While the plaintiff may have obtained, for a brief time, a
memorandum of lis pendens, and while the memorandum may have
made selling the property more difficult, it did not prevent the
true owner of the property from selling it to a willing buyer.
See Debral Realty, Inc. v. DiChiara, 383 Mass. 559, 564 & n.9
(1981).

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declaratory judgment (No. 2481CV-01879). A different Superior

Court judge realized that the complaint had been accepted for

filing without authorization under the 2019 order. Concluding

that the complaint involved the same dispute as the 2019 action,

the second judge determined that it should not be authorized and

dismissed it.

Discussion. The Superior Court has the discretion to

prohibit a plaintiff from bringing future legal proceedings

without prior leave of the court when such an action is

necessary to put "a stop to harassing, vexatious, and

repetitious litigation." State Realty Co. of Boston v. MacNeil,

341 Mass. 123, 124 (1960). Cf. Sommer v. Maharaj, 451 Mass.

615, 621 (2008) (Superior Court possesses "inherent power to

enforce its own orders, to manage [its] own affairs so as to

achieve the orderly and expeditious disposition of cases,"

including power to dismiss case "when justified by a party's

extreme conduct" [quotation and citations omitted]). The

plaintiff does not challenge the propriety of the 2019 order,

but instead argues that the current action is not based on the

"same dispute" because it does not challenge the foreclosure,

but instead asserts claims of "Harassment, Assault, Scam,

Mortgage Fraud, Title Theft, and Trespass."

The plaintiff's argument is meritless on its face. The

very terms he uses -- scam, mortgage fraud, title theft, and

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trespass -- all describe his repeated challenges to his

foreclosure and eviction. A review of the allegations in the

complaint confirms that the vast majority of his claims arise

from the foreclosure and eviction and either were raised, or

could have been raised, in one or more of the plaintiff's

previous lawsuits. We agree with the second judge that "[t]his

action involves the same dispute as prior actions and almost

certainly is subject to res judicata, statute of limitations,

and other threshold defenses."

In one respect, the current complaint raised new claims

that could not have been brought in previous actions. The

plaintiff alleged that on occasions in 2022 and 2023, he

encountered the defendants during church activities and they

asked him, through a person with a similar-sounding last name as

the plaintiff, to stay away from them or to leave. The

plaintiff further alleges that once, when he refused to leave,

defendant Brendan Ferguson "chased the Plaintiff to the [church]

Hall and physically tried to remove him." The plaintiff's

claims of harassment, assault, and emotional distress are based

on these facts.

The judge noted, however, that defendants Christina and

Michael Marge had obtained harassment prevention orders against

the plaintiff, and that he had in fact been criminally charged

with violating these orders. The defendants, accordingly, had

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good reason to ask the plaintiff to stay away from them. The

judge also suggested that bringing the current action against

the defendants violated the harassment prevention orders. The

judge determined, "In these circumstances, it serves no

legitimate purpose to permit [the plaintiff] to use court

proceedings . . . to harass the defendants." We agree.

Assuming the truth of the plaintiff's allegations of the

defendants' conduct in 2022 and 2023, that conduct is related to

the plaintiff's serial litigation of the foreclosure and

eviction. In addition, those allegations fail to establish a

plausible entitlement to relief under any recognized cause of

action. See Iannacchino v. Ford Motor Co., 451 Mass. 623, 636

(2008). Accordingly, it was within the judge's discretion to

refuse to grant the plaintiff permission to proceed on the

complaint. Id.

Judgment affirmed.

By the Court (Massing,
Singh & Grant, JJ.3),

Clerk

Entered: May 14, 2026.

3 The panelists are listed in order of seniority.

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