During the first full week of most months from September through May, the Supreme Judicial Court is open for arguments. Between a handful of first degree murder appeals, the seven justices consider some cases that have slowly wound their way up from the lower courts, plus a few that present important questions of constitutional law that call for clarity from the state’s high court before sending them back down for trial or judgement. 

In November, the justices will wrestle with some disputes that are years or decades in the making. Others touch on current crises. And the Legislature’s action or inaction is often a factor.  

Here’s a preview of four cases that could have wide-ranging effects, set for oral arguments before the SJC next month.  

Charter school public records fight – November 3 

A years-long legal dispute between Attorney General Andrea Campbell and the high-performing but controversial Mystic Valley Regional Charter School is hitting the high court. The Malden-based charter received at least 10 public records requests between January and November 2022 from the Malden News Network, Commonwealth Transparency, and mayoral candidate Lissette Alvarado. 

They requested information including corporate statements, contracts, ledgers, lease records, conflict of interest disclosures filed by board members, payments made to employees or professional services, and confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements. Mystic Valley rebuffed each request, claiming that “as a Commonwealth charter school, it does not fall under the category of entities handling public documents” and is not subject to the state public records law. 

After the Supervisor of Records issued multiple orders for the school to comply with the record requests, Campbell’s office filed suit in Suffolk Superior Court in July 2023. The Superior Court sided with the AG’s office, declaring the school to be a government entity subject to the public records law. Mystic Valley appealed, arguing that the suit fundamentally misunderstood the nature of charter schools.  

Mystic Valley has faced controversy before, including criticism over a dress code policy banning hair extensions that disproportionately affected Black students, which led to passage of state legislation declaring such practices discriminatory. 

In this case, the school argues that charters are more like business entities, granted “significant independence” without strong enough ties to the state to make them government entities subject to public records laws.  

“The Legislature intended for charter school (sic) to chart their own course, with the freedom to experiment and test out new ways of teaching children,” the school wrote in its brief to the high court. “With these goals in mind, it is logical to treat charter schools more like private, independent organizations than governmental entities. 

But the AG’s office says the school “can only exist and operate” if the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education allows it and continues to renew its charter, as it did in 2023, and clearly performs the “government function” of educating the Commonwealth’s young people as a public school. 

Whistleblower retaliation suit drags on – November 3 

Thomas Galvin’s wrongful termination lawsuit against Roxbury Community College is now before the SJC, more than a decade after the former security chief was fired. 

Galvin served as the college’s director of facilities and public safety from 2007 until his August 2012 termination. In a lawsuit filed in Middlesex Superior Court, he claimed he was fired as retaliation for exposing the college’s failure to report sexual assault allegations as required under the federal Clery Act. He is the brother of Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin.  

In 2010, Galvin received a letter from a student alleging she had been sexually violated by two former professors and had previously reported the incidents to college administrators. When Galvin pressed college officials about whether the complaints had been properly reported under the Clery Act, he alleges Vice President of Administration and Finance Alane Shanks told him there was nothing to report and accused him of trying to get her in trouble. 

Galvin reported what he believed to be the college’s Clery Act failures to state auditors and federal authorities in 2011. The college fired him the next year, citing security and performance concerns raised in an internal audit, including issues with Galvin’s Clery Act reporting.  

The Superior Court, considering Gavin’s claim that he was protected by the state’s whistleblower statute, rejected the college’s argument that Galvin had to prove he acted in good faith and agreed with Galvin that he engaged in protected activity. The high court will hear arguments on whether the lower court correctly found that Galvin was a whistleblower under state law. 

If lawmakers won’t raise attorney wages, can the courts? – November 5 

The bar advocate work stoppage will finally reach the full Supreme Judicial Court, which is being asked to consider whether it has the constitutional authority to raise court-appointed attorney pay rates. 

Most bar advocates, private attorneys who handle roughly 80 percent of indigent criminal defense cases in Massachusetts, stopped work in Suffolk and Middlesex county courts in June 2025, demanding higher hourly rates. Bar advocates in Massachusetts make $65 an hour, while advocates in other New England states make more than $100 an hour. The work stoppage overwhelmed the Committee for Public Counsel Services, the state’s major public defender organization. 

The Committee for Public Counsel Services is arguing that the Legislature, which rolled out a deal in late July that would raise the hourly wages $10 per year over the next two years, is shirking its responsibility to make sure that people without means still have access to counsel. Since July, more than 180 people in custody for more than a week without counsel and over 800 without representation for 45 days have been released or had charges dismissed because of the lag in finding attorneys to defend them.  

A lower court judge ordered that attorneys for five defendants be paid $100 an hour, and CPCS was able to find representation for those defendants at that rate. The question before the high court, now, is whether judges have the authority to raise rates to make sure that courts function correctly. Justice Dalila Wendlandt denied a request to raise bar advocate wages on July 3, and the matter now makes it up to the full court.

“Once again, indigent criminal defendants find themselves in an unacceptable and constitutionally intolerable position – without counsel” because of low compensation set by lawmakers, CPCS notes in its brief. The Suffolk County district attorney’s office argues that allowing judges to overrule that statutory wage, however, takes the “serious constitutional failure” and “turns it into a moral demand for judicial intervention, impermissibly blurring the line between enforcing constitutional rights and assuming the powers of the Legislature.” 

$1 billion tobacco verdict under review – November 5 

Philip Morris wants a new trial for a case that involves the largest ever jury award in the history of Massachusetts – in which a Middlesex County Superior Court jury handed down $8 million in compensatory damages and $1 billion in punitive damages – for the 2017 lung cancer death of Barbara Fontaine. 

After three-weeks of proceedings in late 2022, the jury found Philip Morris liable for Fontaine’s death at 60 years old, after 40 years of smoking Phillip Morris cigarettes. But the tobacco company argues among other things that the scale of punitive damages, which the judge reduced to just over $56 million, was constitutionally excessive and demonstrated that the jury was motivated by passion and prejudice. 

“The award is unprecedented from just about any perspective,” Philip Morris argues in its court filing. Focusing on this case, it added, “there was no justification for an award 125 times the $8 million compensatory award.” If an award is so exaggerated that it indicates a jury could be acting from a place of bias or prejudice, just reducing the amount is not enough to make the proceedings fair, the company asserts. 

Fontaine’s estate argues that the trial court judge concluded the award came after the highly educated jury listened attentively to weeks of testimony and asked thoughtful questions. It also argues that the verdict considered what it would take to deter such behavior given the company’s enormous wealth. Philip Morris’s “generational campaign to deceive and create fatally addicted addicts out of Americans worked,” the filing notes. “Preventing similar future conduct would save millions of lives.” 

Other massive punitive awards were reduced but did not lead to a new trial, like a $3 billion award in a 2005 California suit against Philip Morris, which was reduced to $50 million, the estate adds. 

Along with whether the company is entitled to a new trial, the court will consider whether trial judges generally should impose safeguards to avoid excessive damages, and whether the jury should have been told about federal law stating that cigarette labeling is considerate adequate to warn consumers about the risks of smoking. 

Oral arguments take place at the John Adams Courthouse in downtown Boston, starting at 9 a.m., and are live-streamed through a Suffolk Law School partnership.