BOSTON — The Massachusetts Appeals Court heard argument in a suit against the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) in which the central dispute was whether a negligence presentment was correctly directed to the chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation (MassDOT) rather than to an MBTA general-manager position whose exact title and existence at the time the claim was sent was contested.

Attorney for the plaintiff argued that before July 29, 2021, the MBTA was governed by MassDOT and that the MBTA did not have an officer holding the specific title "general manager and rail and transit administrator" to which Chapter 258 required presentment. The plaintiff's counsel said she used a "belt-and-suspenders" approach, sending the presentment to the MassDOT secretary and the attorney general to comply with the Tort Claims Act's goal of enabling investigation and possible settlement.

"At the relevant time, it was the Department of Transportation that governed the MBTA and under Chapter 258 I needed to send my presentment letter to the chief executive officer of the governing entity," the plaintiff's lawyer told the panel.

The MBTA's counsel, David Walsh, responded that Chapter 258's presentment requirement is strict and that the statute expressly names the MBTA's general manager ("general manager and rail and transit administrator") as the required presentment recipient. Walsh said the MBTA has historically received thousands of presentments and litigation over presentment is uncommon; he argued courts must construe the statutory language to require delivery to the named official.

Why this matters: the outcome will clarify how strictly courts enforce the Tort Claims Act's presentment provisions when statutory titles change or when governance structures shift between parent agencies and independent authorities. A ruling for the plaintiff could allow broader constructive-compliance theories in cases where the named position did not exist or where the governing structure was in transition.

At argument, the panel asked whether the MBTA had actual notice and walked counsel through the deposition testimony and the limited discovery the lower court allowed to determine whether the MBTA had received or considered the presentment. The trial judge allowed limited discovery and an affidavit that showed the MBTA's internal practice was to route correspondence to the general manager's office even if it arrived under a slightly different title.

The court took the case under advisement.

Speakers for this argument included the plaintiff's counsel (Heinlein) and David Walsh for the MBTA. The appeals panel reserved decision.