Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Monteiro attorney apparently late in filing Appeals Court Brief

The brief of Malvina Monteiro in Monteiro v. City of Cambridge was due in the Appeals Court on November 16, 2010. That due date appears to have been missed.

The case was filed in Appeals Court on July 16, 2010. This was an appeal by the City of Cambridge from a Superior Court decision in which the judge wrote a very persuasive memorandum of decision. In her memorandum, she called and seemed to prove the Cambridge City Manager “reprehensible” for destroying the life of this Black Cape Verdean department head in retaliation for her filing a civil rights complaint.

The jury decision awarded Ms. Monteiro slightly over $1 million damages plus $3.5 million penal damages. As of May 24, 2010, this award had grown to slightly over $6 million with various costs and interest charges.

After one extension, Cambridge filed its appellate brief on September 10, 2010. Ms. Monteiro was granted an extension to November 16, 2010.

The public docket entries are marked accurate as of November 24, 2010.

They show a motion by Cambridge to amend the papers of record which they have filed. This motion was filed on November 16. The docket also shows the appearance of a new attorney for Cambridge on November 18.

An overworked staff frequently can swallow documents and fail to update the docket, and then suddenly, a fair amount of time later, you suddenly see a filing quite awhile ago.

You know as much as I do.