State high court hears challenge to nonprofit fee award after contested election

BOSTON

The state Supreme Judicial Court heard arguments over whether a charitable-cap statute limits attorney—ees awarded after a contempt finding in a dispute over the Bangladesh Association of New England's internal election. Appellants told the court the lower court abused its discretion by awarding fees without first resolving immunity questions; the appellee said precedent allows fees above the $20,000 cap in non-tort, statutory contexts.

Julie Pruitt Barry, counsel for the appellants, said the fee award rested on an error of law and asked the court to overturn it. "We're asking the court to overturn the fee award by the trial court because it's premised on an error of law," she told the justices, arguing the superior court failed to weigh charitable-immunity protections and other factors before assessing the sanction.

Barry told the bench the parties had settled certain claims after the court ordered a new election in July and that the organization could not afford another election scheduled for October. "The organization did not have the money to run another election," she said, pressing that the settlement gave the plaintiff the two-year term he sought and that a supplemental fee award on top of that relief was effectively punitive.

Counsel for the appellee, Stephanie Parker, representing Mahaba Bkoda, countered that this court's prior decisions make clear a nonprofit may be compelled to pay more than $20,000 when the award arises from statutory claims or intentional misconduct. "The law issued by this court is already quite clear," Parker said, pointing to prior rulings the bench discussed in argument. She urged the court to review the award under established lodestar and reasonableness principles rather than automatically applying the charitable cap.

A major point of bench inquiry was procedural clarity: several justices said the trial judge's written fee order does not specify whether the award is directed solely at the organization or is joint and several against three named individuals and the nonprofit. "I can't tell who this award the who the judge intended this award to be enforced against," one justice said, noting the written order was silent on allocation.

Parker acknowledged the record did not include direct evidence of the parties' finances at the contempt hearing but said the trial judge discussed why the fees were incurred and the complexity of the litigation. She added that volunteer-immunity statutes typically exclude intentional or deliberate misconduct, and that the contempt findings here reflected intentional conduct outside those protections.

The justices and counsel also debated precedent. Barry cited Coppinger v. Coppinger to say courts must consider multiple factors beyond the mere fact of contempt when imposing fees; Parker cited the court's earlier decisions (discussed in argument under names including Birbiglia and a linkage case) to argue that the charitable cap does not categorically shield nonprofits from fees in non-tort or statutory contexts.

The case returns to familiar tension in fee law: whether contempt-based sanctions are properly viewed as remedial (aimed at coercing compliance and making a litigant whole) or punitive (functioning as a penalty), and whether a statutory nonprofit cap should limit contempt sanctions that a trial judge deems necessary to remedy interference with the plaintiff's rights. The justices pressed both sides on how the lower court applied legal standards and whether the record is sufficient to review any abuse of discretion.

The court's decision will determine whether the superior court must reduce or reallocate the fee award under the charitable-cap statute or whether the award stands under the court's precedents. The argument concluded with counsel's time expiring and no immediate ruling from the justices.