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4/5/2021
167
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
ESSEX, SS SUPERIOR COURT
C.A. No. 1667CV01419
SABA HASHEM, individual and as
Manager of D’Angelo & Hashem, LLC
Plaintiff/Defendant-Intervenor
v.
STEPHEN D’ANGELO, individually and
as a Manager of D’Angelo & Hashem,
LLC, and D’Angelo Law Group, LLC,
Defendants/Defendant Intervenor,
Reach and Apply Defendant,
v.
JENNIFER M. CARRION,
Plaintiff-Intervenor.
PLAINTIFF-INTERVENOR’S MOTION TO EXCLUDE EVIDENCE OF PARTIAL
SETTLEMENT BY THE PLAINTIFF INDIVIDUALLY, AND OTHER MATTERS,
DUE TO RISK OF UNFAIR PREJUDICE, MISLEADING THE JURY, CONFUSION
OF ISSUES, AND WASTE OF TIME
The Court “may exclude relevant evidence, if its probative value is substantially
outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the
issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative
evidence.” Mass.Guide Evid. § 403. T HEREFORE, the Plaintiff-Intervenor, Jennifer M.
Carrion, respectfully moves this Honorable Court to exclude evidence that she believes may
be used to distract, sidetrack, or confuse a jury and/or inflame their sentiments.
Specifically, Ms. Carrion moves that all the Defendant-Intervenors, Stephen D’Angelo,
D’Angelo Law Group, LLC, D’Angelo & Hashem LLC, and Saba Hashem, be barred from
introducing evidence or argument of (1) Ms. Carrion’s partial settlement with Mr. Hashem
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individually, except for the amounts paid and/or outstanding when judge addresses
damages owed to the Plaintiff-Intervenor, (2) re-litigating the issues resolved at Summary
Judgment, (3) attorney’s fees, interest, or any treble damages awarded to Ms. Carrion, (4)
the mudslinging by counsel during this over 3.5 years long intervention to collect a
discrimination judgment, and/or (5) the specifics leading to the Plaintiff’s suspension from
the practice of law.
I. Evidence concerning Partial Settlement by a Joint Tortfeasor should not be
admissible to a jury, except for a judge making an appropriate reduction in
the amount awarded to Plaintiff, if jury returns verdict for the Plaintiff.
It is axiomatic in this Commonwealth that “When there is no significant risk that
the jury's factfinding function will be distorted, evidence of the settlement should be excluded. Morea v.
Cosco Inc. 422 Mass. 601, 603 (1996 citing D.P. Leonard, Selected Rules of Limited
Admissibility, The New Wigmore § 3.7.5, at 3:100 (1996). In declining to follow the
previous “so-called jury rule,” the High Court in Morea held that in this Commonwealth,
“For the future, unless admission of the evidence is relevant for some other purpose, no evidence
of a settlement or the amount of the settlement shall be admissible. The judge shall instruct
the jury to determine the damages that the defendant substantially caused, and the judge shall
make the appropriate reduction in the amount to be awarded to a plaintiff if the jury return a
plaintiff's verdict. See Tritsch II, supra at 265, 346 N.E.2d 901 (concerning method of
reflecting settlement with one tortfeasor in judgment to be entered against another tortfeasor).
There may be situations, however, in which evidence of a settlement, or the amount of
a settlement, will bear on some issue in the case other than damages, and an automatic rule
of exclusion should not be applied. In the judge's discretion, it may be fair in particular
circumstances, as, for example, when one defendant settles during trial, to advise the jury of the
fact that there has been a settlement and to instruct the jury to arrive at any damage
determination without consideration of, or speculation about, the settlement. See Rule 408 of
the Proposed Massachusetts Rules of Evidence which expresses the principle that we now adopt,
by generally excluding evidence of a settlement to prove either liability or the amount of a claim
but not requiring exclusion when the evidence is offered for another purpose. (Citing Id)
The rule we adopt will tend to encourage a plaintiff to settle with one tortfeasor, knowing that
the case against another tortfeasor will not be prejudiced by evidence of
the settlement. Moreover, leaving the calculation to adjust for the settlement to the judge
instead of to the jury, will facilitate the application of the offset that this court has directed be
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made to reflect a settlement with another joint tortfeasor. See Tritsch II, supra. Morea, 422
Mass at 603-604 citing Proposed Rule 408, Tritsch v. Boston Edison Co., 363 Mass.
179, 182, (1973)
Therefore, Ms. Carrion requests that the Court exclude evidence to the jury of a
partial settlement by the Plaintiff, individually. Evidence of the partial settlement can
confuse and distract a jury from the fact that the Plaintiff-Intervenor is owed her remedy ten
years after her trial, when the Defendant-Intervenors had or have the ability to pay her
Judgments, and after fighting this Intervention. The settlement is only relevant to the issues
of damages, which is best for the judge to offset after a jury’s damage determination, as the
law requires. Other than as to damages, there is no purpose to introduce to the jury the
partial settlement being paid by the Plaintiff individually to Ms. Carrion. For this reason,
the settlement by the Plaintiff, individually, to Ms. Carrion must be excluded as unfairly
prejudicial and confusing to a jury.
II. Relitigating Successor liability of D’Angelo Law Group LLC to D’Angelo
& Hashem, LLC, must be excluded, since it was resolved at Summary
Judgment.
This Court has held by Summary Judgment that D’Angelo Law Group, LLC is a
successor law firm to D’Angelo & Hashem LLC as a matter of law. It has been established
that D’Angelo Law Group LLC is liable for the debts of D’Angelo & Hashem LLC, and
that Ms. Carrion is entitled to Judgment against D’Angelo Law Group, LLC. Summary
Judgment Opinion and Judgment. It has been held that the de facto merger doctrine applies
to both D’Angelo Law Group, LLC and D’Angelo & Hashem LLC. Summary Judgment
Opinion and Judgment. As a result, any argument to the contrary can confuse a jury, waste
time, and run the risk of defying this Honorable Court’s decision on summary judgment.
Therefore, this Court must bar the Intervenor- Defendants’, D’Angelo & Hashem, LLC,
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D’Angelo Law Group, LLC and Mr. D’Angelo from relitigating the issues resolved at
Summary Judgment.
III. Evidence or argument concerning attorney’s fees, interest, treble damages,
must be off limits to a jury.
A Successful Plaintiff under M.G.L. Chapter 151B is entitled to, without limitation,
attorney’s fees, costs, and interest. The jury’s task is to determine whether the Intervenor-
Defendants, Mr. D’Angelo, D’Angelo & Hashem, LLC, and D’Angelo Law Group LLC,
hindered. obstructed, and defrauded Ms. Carrion from being paid on her pregnancy
discrimination judgments/jury verdict. The Jury will also be deciding whether the
Intervenor-Defendants fraudulently transferred monies, assets, credits to avoid paying Ms.
Carrion and keeping payments from her reach as a Judgment creditor. Ms. Carrion’s
awards for attorney’s fees, costs, interest, and other forms of statutory relief can distract a
jury from finding whether the Intervenor-Defendants hindered, obstructed and defrauded
Ms. Carrion from receiving payments on her Jury Verdict, Judgments, and/or Executions
for over 10 years when having the ability to pay her. The main issue is that Ms. Carrion has
not received compensation for her harms after ten years and filing the subject intervention.
IV. Character Assassination of Counsel must be excluded as a waste of time.
This Court must exclude Intervenor-Defendants from making character
assassinations and denigration of Counsel litigating this action. Mudslinging of counsel is a
waste of time, inflammatory, unduly prejudicial, lacking of probative value, and confusing
to a jury. Denigration of counsel is irrelevant to the facts at bar, unprofessional, and also
unethical. Lawyers must have candor to the tribunal and respect the attorneys cannot be
witnesses to their case (Rules 3.7 , 4.2 Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct.) The
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subject matter litigated is recovery of Ms. Carrion’s judgments and whether Mr. D’Angelo,
D’Angelo Law Group, LLC, owe Ms. Carrion, D’Angelo Hashem, LLC, and Mr. Hashem,
monies from the actions that transgressed from Ms. Carrion’s jury trial against D’Angelo &
Hashem LLC through the present.
V. Specific details leading to the Plaintiff’s suspension from the practice of law
should be excluded as distracting, confusing, unduly prejudicial from the
real issue of whether attorney’s fees are owed to predecessor law firm, its
law partner, and thereby Judgment Creditor Ms. Carrion, by the D’Angelo
Law Group LLC and Mr. D’Angelo.
The details concerning Plaintiff’s suspension of his license to practice law can
inflame, agitate, and distract a jury from resolving the true issue at bar. It is stipulated that
the Plaintiff is suspended from the practice of law. The details surrounding the suspension
do not relate to whether the Plaintiff-Intervenor, Ms. Carrion, is owed monies from Mr.
D’Angelo, D’Angelo Law Group, LLC, D’Angelo & Hashem, LLC, its members, Mr.
Hashem, before and following the Plaintiff’s suspension from the practice of law.
The issue of compensation that the Plaintiff-Intervenor is owed towards her
Judgment by the Defendants-Intervenors is unrelated to the facts surrounding Mr. Hashem’s
suspension. The details regarding the Plaintiff’s license suspension can unfairly distract the
jury in finding verdict on the Plaintiff-Intervenors recovery. The circumstances regarding
the law license suspension can confuse and unfairly prejudice the jury from finding that all
the Defendants-Intervenors made valuable six figure incomes and defrauded Ms. Carrion’s
recovery of her discrimination judgments. The specifics of the law license suspension did
not prevent the Defendant-Intervenors, Mr. D’Angelo, D’Angelo Law Group, LLC, and
D’Angelo & Hashem, LLC from earning nearly a million dollars in attorneys fees or paying
the Plaintiff-Intervenor. Further, the particulars of Plaintiff’s suspension did not excuse
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Defendant-Intervenors from paying Ms. Carrion, or setting up an escrow account to pay for
her judgment, or winding down the D’Angelo & Hashem LLC so that LLC debts, like Ms.
Carrion’s judgments, can be paid before the Defendant-Intervenors pocketed the monies
from Ms. Carrion’s recovery.
WHEREFORE, Plaintiff -Intervenor moves for the relief sought and that this Court
to exclude evidence, and any other relief it deems fair and just, regarding:
1. Ms. Carrion’s partial settlement with Mr. Hashem individually, except for the
amounts paid and/or outstanding when judge addresses damages owed to the
Plaintiff-Intervenor,
2. re-litigating the issues resolved at Summary Judgment,
3. attorney’s fees, interest, or any treble damages awarded to Ms. Carrion,
4. the mudslinging by counsel during this over 3.5 years long intervention to collect a
discrimination judgment, and/or
5. the specifics leading to the Plaintiff’s suspension from the practice of law.
Respectfully Submitted,
Jennifer M. Carrion, Intervenor-Plaintiff,
By Her Attorney,
/s/ Mernaysa Rivera-Bujosa
Mernaysa Rivera Bujosa, Esq. BBO
#665965
Rivera-Bujosa Law, P.C.
C-2 Shipway Place
Charlestown, MA 02129
P: (617) 398-6728
F: (617) 389-6730
E: mernaysa@riverabujosalaw.com
Page 6 of 7
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I, Mernaysa Rivera-Bujosa, Esq., do herewith certify that I have on this 2 day of April 2021,
I served a copy of the within document by electronic mail upon counsel appeared in this
action, to wit:
Thomas C. LaPorte, Esq. Cossingham Law Office, PC, 30 Massachusetts Avenue,
Suite 404, North Andover, MA 01845
Albert L. Farrah, Jr., Farrah & Farrah 800 Boylston Street, Suite 1600 Boston, MA
02199, alf@farrah-law.com
/s Mernaysa Rivera-Bujosa
____________________________
Mernaysa Rivera-Bujosa, Esq.
Page 7 of 7
Preview
4/5/2021 167 COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS ESSEX, SS SUPERIOR COURT C.A. No. 1667CV01419 SABA HASHEM, individual and as Manager of D’Angelo & Hashem, LLC Plaintiff/Defendant-Intervenor v. STEPHEN D’ANGELO, individually and as a Manager of D’Angelo & Hashem, LLC, and D’Angelo Law Group, LLC, Defendants/Defendant Intervenor, Reach and Apply Defendant, v. JENNIFER M. CARRION, Plaintiff-Intervenor. PLAINTIFF-INTERVENOR’S MOTION TO EXCLUDE EVIDENCE OF PARTIAL SETTLEMENT BY THE PLAINTIFF INDIVIDUALLY, AND OTHER MATTERS, DUE TO RISK OF UNFAIR PREJUDICE, MISLEADING THE JURY, CONFUSION OF ISSUES, AND WASTE OF TIME The Court “may exclude relevant evidence, if its probative value is substantially outweighed by a danger of one or more of the following: unfair prejudice, confusing the issues, misleading the jury, undue delay, wasting time, or needlessly presenting cumulative evidence.” Mass.Guide Evid. § 403. T HEREFORE, the Plaintiff-Intervenor, Jennifer M. Carrion, respectfully moves this Honorable Court to exclude evidence that she believes may be used to distract, sidetrack, or confuse a jury and/or inflame their sentiments. Specifically, Ms. Carrion moves that all the Defendant-Intervenors, Stephen D’Angelo, D’Angelo Law Group, LLC, D’Angelo & Hashem LLC, and Saba Hashem, be barred from introducing evidence or argument of (1) Ms. Carrion’s partial settlement with Mr. Hashem Page 1 of 7 individually, except for the amounts paid and/or outstanding when judge addresses damages owed to the Plaintiff-Intervenor, (2) re-litigating the issues resolved at Summary Judgment, (3) attorney’s fees, interest, or any treble damages awarded to Ms. Carrion, (4) the mudslinging by counsel during this over 3.5 years long intervention to collect a discrimination judgment, and/or (5) the specifics leading to the Plaintiff’s suspension from the practice of law. I. Evidence concerning Partial Settlement by a Joint Tortfeasor should not be admissible to a jury, except for a judge making an appropriate reduction in the amount awarded to Plaintiff, if jury returns verdict for the Plaintiff. It is axiomatic in this Commonwealth that “When there is no significant risk that the jury's factfinding function will be distorted, evidence of the settlement should be excluded. Morea v. Cosco Inc. 422 Mass. 601, 603 (1996 citing D.P. Leonard, Selected Rules of Limited Admissibility, The New Wigmore § 3.7.5, at 3:100 (1996). In declining to follow the previous “so-called jury rule,” the High Court in Morea held that in this Commonwealth, “For the future, unless admission of the evidence is relevant for some other purpose, no evidence of a settlement or the amount of the settlement shall be admissible. The judge shall instruct the jury to determine the damages that the defendant substantially caused, and the judge shall make the appropriate reduction in the amount to be awarded to a plaintiff if the jury return a plaintiff's verdict. See Tritsch II, supra at 265, 346 N.E.2d 901 (concerning method of reflecting settlement with one tortfeasor in judgment to be entered against another tortfeasor). There may be situations, however, in which evidence of a settlement, or the amount of a settlement, will bear on some issue in the case other than damages, and an automatic rule of exclusion should not be applied. In the judge's discretion, it may be fair in particular circumstances, as, for example, when one defendant settles during trial, to advise the jury of the fact that there has been a settlement and to instruct the jury to arrive at any damage determination without consideration of, or speculation about, the settlement. See Rule 408 of the Proposed Massachusetts Rules of Evidence which expresses the principle that we now adopt, by generally excluding evidence of a settlement to prove either liability or the amount of a claim but not requiring exclusion when the evidence is offered for another purpose. (Citing Id) The rule we adopt will tend to encourage a plaintiff to settle with one tortfeasor, knowing that the case against another tortfeasor will not be prejudiced by evidence of the settlement. Moreover, leaving the calculation to adjust for the settlement to the judge instead of to the jury, will facilitate the application of the offset that this court has directed be Page 2 of 7 made to reflect a settlement with another joint tortfeasor. See Tritsch II, supra. Morea, 422 Mass at 603-604 citing Proposed Rule 408, Tritsch v. Boston Edison Co., 363 Mass. 179, 182, (1973) Therefore, Ms. Carrion requests that the Court exclude evidence to the jury of a partial settlement by the Plaintiff, individually. Evidence of the partial settlement can confuse and distract a jury from the fact that the Plaintiff-Intervenor is owed her remedy ten years after her trial, when the Defendant-Intervenors had or have the ability to pay her Judgments, and after fighting this Intervention. The settlement is only relevant to the issues of damages, which is best for the judge to offset after a jury’s damage determination, as the law requires. Other than as to damages, there is no purpose to introduce to the jury the partial settlement being paid by the Plaintiff individually to Ms. Carrion. For this reason, the settlement by the Plaintiff, individually, to Ms. Carrion must be excluded as unfairly prejudicial and confusing to a jury. II. Relitigating Successor liability of D’Angelo Law Group LLC to D’Angelo & Hashem, LLC, must be excluded, since it was resolved at Summary Judgment. This Court has held by Summary Judgment that D’Angelo Law Group, LLC is a successor law firm to D’Angelo & Hashem LLC as a matter of law. It has been established that D’Angelo Law Group LLC is liable for the debts of D’Angelo & Hashem LLC, and that Ms. Carrion is entitled to Judgment against D’Angelo Law Group, LLC. Summary Judgment Opinion and Judgment. It has been held that the de facto merger doctrine applies to both D’Angelo Law Group, LLC and D’Angelo & Hashem LLC. Summary Judgment Opinion and Judgment. As a result, any argument to the contrary can confuse a jury, waste time, and run the risk of defying this Honorable Court’s decision on summary judgment. Therefore, this Court must bar the Intervenor- Defendants’, D’Angelo & Hashem, LLC, Page 3 of 7 D’Angelo Law Group, LLC and Mr. D’Angelo from relitigating the issues resolved at Summary Judgment. III. Evidence or argument concerning attorney’s fees, interest, treble damages, must be off limits to a jury. A Successful Plaintiff under M.G.L. Chapter 151B is entitled to, without limitation, attorney’s fees, costs, and interest. The jury’s task is to determine whether the Intervenor- Defendants, Mr. D’Angelo, D’Angelo & Hashem, LLC, and D’Angelo Law Group LLC, hindered. obstructed, and defrauded Ms. Carrion from being paid on her pregnancy discrimination judgments/jury verdict. The Jury will also be deciding whether the Intervenor-Defendants fraudulently transferred monies, assets, credits to avoid paying Ms. Carrion and keeping payments from her reach as a Judgment creditor. Ms. Carrion’s awards for attorney’s fees, costs, interest, and other forms of statutory relief can distract a jury from finding whether the Intervenor-Defendants hindered, obstructed and defrauded Ms. Carrion from receiving payments on her Jury Verdict, Judgments, and/or Executions for over 10 years when having the ability to pay her. The main issue is that Ms. Carrion has not received compensation for her harms after ten years and filing the subject intervention. IV. Character Assassination of Counsel must be excluded as a waste of time. This Court must exclude Intervenor-Defendants from making character assassinations and denigration of Counsel litigating this action. Mudslinging of counsel is a waste of time, inflammatory, unduly prejudicial, lacking of probative value, and confusing to a jury. Denigration of counsel is irrelevant to the facts at bar, unprofessional, and also unethical. Lawyers must have candor to the tribunal and respect the attorneys cannot be witnesses to their case (Rules 3.7 , 4.2 Massachusetts Rules of Professional Conduct.) The Page 4 of 7 subject matter litigated is recovery of Ms. Carrion’s judgments and whether Mr. D’Angelo, D’Angelo Law Group, LLC, owe Ms. Carrion, D’Angelo Hashem, LLC, and Mr. Hashem, monies from the actions that transgressed from Ms. Carrion’s jury trial against D’Angelo & Hashem LLC through the present. V. Specific details leading to the Plaintiff’s suspension from the practice of law should be excluded as distracting, confusing, unduly prejudicial from the real issue of whether attorney’s fees are owed to predecessor law firm, its law partner, and thereby Judgment Creditor Ms. Carrion, by the D’Angelo Law Group LLC and Mr. D’Angelo. The details concerning Plaintiff’s suspension of his license to practice law can inflame, agitate, and distract a jury from resolving the true issue at bar. It is stipulated that the Plaintiff is suspended from the practice of law. The details surrounding the suspension do not relate to whether the Plaintiff-Intervenor, Ms. Carrion, is owed monies from Mr. D’Angelo, D’Angelo Law Group, LLC, D’Angelo & Hashem, LLC, its members, Mr. Hashem, before and following the Plaintiff’s suspension from the practice of law. The issue of compensation that the Plaintiff-Intervenor is owed towards her Judgment by the Defendants-Intervenors is unrelated to the facts surrounding Mr. Hashem’s suspension. The details regarding the Plaintiff’s license suspension can unfairly distract the jury in finding verdict on the Plaintiff-Intervenors recovery. The circumstances regarding the law license suspension can confuse and unfairly prejudice the jury from finding that all the Defendants-Intervenors made valuable six figure incomes and defrauded Ms. Carrion’s recovery of her discrimination judgments. The specifics of the law license suspension did not prevent the Defendant-Intervenors, Mr. D’Angelo, D’Angelo Law Group, LLC, and D’Angelo & Hashem, LLC from earning nearly a million dollars in attorneys fees or paying the Plaintiff-Intervenor. Further, the particulars of Plaintiff’s suspension did not excuse Page 5 of 7 Defendant-Intervenors from paying Ms. Carrion, or setting up an escrow account to pay for her judgment, or winding down the D’Angelo & Hashem LLC so that LLC debts, like Ms. Carrion’s judgments, can be paid before the Defendant-Intervenors pocketed the monies from Ms. Carrion’s recovery. WHEREFORE, Plaintiff -Intervenor moves for the relief sought and that this Court to exclude evidence, and any other relief it deems fair and just, regarding: 1. Ms. Carrion’s partial settlement with Mr. Hashem individually, except for the amounts paid and/or outstanding when judge addresses damages owed to the Plaintiff-Intervenor, 2. re-litigating the issues resolved at Summary Judgment, 3. attorney’s fees, interest, or any treble damages awarded to Ms. Carrion, 4. the mudslinging by counsel during this over 3.5 years long intervention to collect a discrimination judgment, and/or 5. the specifics leading to the Plaintiff’s suspension from the practice of law. Respectfully Submitted, Jennifer M. Carrion, Intervenor-Plaintiff, By Her Attorney, /s/ Mernaysa Rivera-Bujosa Mernaysa Rivera Bujosa, Esq. BBO #665965 Rivera-Bujosa Law, P.C. C-2 Shipway Place Charlestown, MA 02129 P: (617) 398-6728 F: (617) 389-6730 E: mernaysa@riverabujosalaw.com Page 6 of 7 CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I, Mernaysa Rivera-Bujosa, Esq., do herewith certify that I have on this 2 day of April 2021, I served a copy of the within document by electronic mail upon counsel appeared in this action, to wit: Thomas C. LaPorte, Esq. Cossingham Law Office, PC, 30 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 404, North Andover, MA 01845 Albert L. Farrah, Jr., Farrah & Farrah 800 Boylston Street, Suite 1600 Boston, MA 02199, alf@farrah-law.com /s Mernaysa Rivera-Bujosa ____________________________ Mernaysa Rivera-Bujosa, Esq. Page 7 of 7