Appeals Court hears dispute over standing, due process in Page v. Massachusetts DEP dock license

At oral argument before the Massachusetts Appeals Court, attorneys for Malcolm Page and Jill Stickler Page urged that the pages were denied due process because the Office of Appeals and Dispute Resolution (OADR) post‑prehearing order limited the issues the parties could address and, after the pages submitted prefiled testimony, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) filed a motion to dismiss for lack of standing.

Jonathan Silverstein, counsel for the appellants, told the panel the pages “were never given the opportunity to present evidence” on standing and that their inability to submit additional evidence after the OADR order was “fundamentally unfair.” He argued the pages had alleged a cognizable injury from a proposed dock placed “1 foot from your property line,” saying, “When you have speedboats zooming up to a dock 1 foot from…