Massachusetts News 
By John Maguire 

October 1--A nationwide reaction has followed the federal anti-discrimination lawsuit against Massachusetts state judges which was filed by the Fatherhood Coalition. Within days of the filing of the lawsuit, the story had appeared in most of the state’s newpapers and widely in the national media.  

"Interest in this case has been overwhelming," said David C. Grossack, the Hull attorney who filed the suit on behalf of six plaintiffs and the Fatherhood Coalition. "I just got off the phone with the BBC in London." 

The suit alleges that Massachusetts judges are routinely violating the U.S. Constitution. It specifies violations of the 5th and 14th Amendment rights to due process, of the 14th Amendment right to equal protection, and of the Second Amendment right to bear arms. 

It asks the federal courts to step in and stop widespread anti-male discrimination in Massachusetts Probate Courts. The plaintiffs also seek a ruling that the 209A Restraining Order law violates the U.S. Constitution, and they ask for an immediate injunction against its enforcement. 

"The state and national reporters have gone wild with this story," said Earl Sholley, a plaintiff and a member of the Fatherhood Coalition. "I think a lot of married, male news editors around the country are waking up to the fact that biased divorced courts are dangerous not only to their friends, but to themselves. The message the fathers’ movement has been carrying for years is starting to sink in nationally – that the family courts have abandoned the Constitution, and that there’s a real Constitutional crisis here that affects everyone." 

Within Massachusetts, the lawsuit was covered by Jordana Hart, Cathy Young, and Eileen McNamara of the Boston Globe, and by Erica Noonan of the Associated Press. Hart’s lengthy story ran on page B-3. Noonan’s wire story went all over the state, where it was picked up by most of the state’s daily papers. The Boston Herald ran the AP story. The lawsuit and the question of bias against men in this state’s courts received a two-hour sympathetic broadcast on the David Brudnoy show during the week the suit was filed.  

Nationally, MS-NBC covered the story. Noonan’s AP story made the national wire and was printed in papers around the country. Talk-radio programs interviewed Boston sources on the lawsuit and broadcast the interviews widely. Mark Charalambous, a founder of the Fatherhood Coalition, spoke on programs in California and Seattle, as well as on "The Diner Show" which is carried by 160 stations. Earl Sholley faced off a local district attorney on TV, on the CBS Morning News.  

Nationally syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker, whose work goes to 300 papers, wrote a sympathetic column on the lawsuit. Locally, it ran in the Boston Herald. Parker wrote of the 209A Restraining Order: 

"One does not have to suspend disbelief to imagine that people under emotional duress might fabricate or exaggerate to protect their interests. But presuming guilt and laying waste to a person’s life on the basis of another’s word is simple witch-hunting. The routine issuance of draconian restraining orders is the foul product of our late 20th-century demonization of men." 

In the Boston Globe, Cathy Young offered the following information on the subject: 

"Are these horror stories blown out of proportion by angry divorced men? No. Even many attorneys, men and women, agree that a serious problem exists. In a 1993 article in the Massachusetts Bar Association Newsletter, Elaine Epstein, then president of the Massachusetts Bar Association, warned that the "frenzy surrounding domestic violence" was leading to disturbing excesses: "Restraining orders...are granted to virtually all who apply... In many divorce cases, allegations of abuse are now used for tactical advantage." Under the Abuse Prevention Act of 1978, a temporary restraining order can be used ex parte, without the defendant being notified – much less informed about specific charges. In theory, he can present his side at a later hearing to determine if the order should be made permanent. 

At these hearings, however, the defendant has none of the safeguards of a criminal trial. Cross-examination of witnesses may be severely limited, and many attorneys say that exculpatory evidence is unlikely to be given serious weight."
 

The lawsuit asks for an injunction against the unequal administration of justice in the areas of domestic violence and abuse petitions.  

Defendants in the suit are the roughly 40 justices of the Probate and Family Courts. These women and men adjudicate dissolutions of marriage, alimony and child support, child custody and visitation and division of marital assets. The suit charges that the six plaintiffs "and other men similarly situated" have been irreparably damaged by the "customs and rules" of the Commonwealth’s courts which in restraining order situations: 

• Only allow a perfunctory hearing without full due process and without rules of evidence, after a male resident has been ordered out of his home.  

• Permit so called "victim witness advocates" to act as defacto unlicensed lawyers for women who pursue what are often exaggerated accounts of domestic abuse concocted for the purpose of gaining full possession of the homes of the plaintiffs and similarly situated persons.  

Summary of Individual Cases  

A summary of the individual injustices in the lawsuit claimed:  

• In the case of James Carroll, Bedford, the wife was awarded the husband’s entire retirement pension, his marital home, and virtually his entire life savings.  

• In the case of Allen vs. Allen, the former husband was found in contempt of a court payment order, even though he presented evidence that he was not working and was receiving unemployment insurance, and the counter argument offered by the other side was merely speculation without evidence.  

• In the case of Richard Scanlon, Duxbury, Judge Anna Doherty made no pretense of due process, threatening Mr. Scanlon with imprisonment even before he was allowed to speak in his own behalf. It imposed a payment order on him beyond his ability to pay, and did not give him a meaningful opportunity to be heard. 

• In the case of Hunter vs. Hunter, Judge Christina Harms imprisoned a husband for his refusal to commit a fraud at her direction: She wanted him to pay child support from proceeds of a student loan, which would have been a fraudulent misapplication of this loan. 

• In The case of Donald Roines, Hull, where the parties reached a mutually satisfactory separation agreement, Judge Christina Harms on her own advised the wife that she could obtain a better result and need not accept the agreement. 
 

RETURN TO FRONT PAGE