Justia Family Law Opinion Summaries

Articles Posted in Massachusetts Supreme Court
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Mother appealed the Juvenile Court's determination that her daughter was in need of care and protection and dispensed with the need for the child's parents' consent to adoption, guardianship, custody, or other disposition of the child, which effectively terminated the parents' rights. At issue was whether G.L.c. 233, section 82, which in certain circumstances allowed the admission into evidence in a civil proceeding of "out-of-court statements of a child under the age of ten describing any act of sexual contact performed on or with the child," applied where the child was under the age of ten when she made the statements but ten years of age or older at the time of trial. The court held that the statute applied where the child was under the age of ten when she made the statements, regardless of her age at the time of the trial. Therefore, the court held that the hearsay statements made by the child when she was under the age of ten but admitted in evidence when she was eleven years of age were properly admitted. Accordingly, the court affirmed the Juvenile Court's decree.

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The subject of the present appeal was an order issued by a judge in the Probate and Family Court, authorizing the involuntary administration of antipsychotic medication (substituted judgment treatment order) to a mentally ill women under guardianship. The order was issued on February 2009 and has since expired, therefore, the appeal was moot. However, the court addressed the issue concerning notice requirements applicable to motions seeking substituted judgment treatment orders because that issue was likely to recur. The court held that a party filing a motion for entry of a substituted judgment treatment order must provide all other parties with at least seven days notice through service of a copy of the motion on them, and must give the same notice, through service, of every affidavit that will be filed in support of the motion.