Cases scheduled to be heard in May.

Byline: Mass. Lawyers Weekly Staff

Following is a list of the cases scheduled to be argued before the Supreme Judicial Court in May. The summaries of the issues presented in the cases have been prepared by Lawyers Weekly. The SJC, in cooperation with Suffolk University Law School, provides live and archived webcasts of its arguments from the current court year at www.suffolk.edu/sjc.

MONDAY, MAY 4

Commonwealth v. Harding

SJC-12875

The issues are: (1) whether the defendant, a sex offender subject to registration with the Sex Offender Registry Board, was obligated to register his customers' home address as a place of employment, where the defendant performed services there as a home improvement contractor but maintained a workshop at his home in another town; and (2) whether the defendant violated the probation condition that he not "work, volunteer, [or] reside with children under 16 years old" by working onsite at his customers' residence while the owners' infant child was present, where the defendant had no contact with the child.

David B. Mark and Stephen C. Nadeau Jr., for the commonwealth

Eric Tennen for the defendant-appellant

Commonwealth v. Ramos-Cabrera

SJC-12900

The defendant claims to be entitled to a required finding of not guilty on a charge of distribution of heroin within 100 feet of a public park on the ground that the property in question was not a "park" within the meaning of G.L.c. 94C, 32J, because the property was in a state of disrepair, the city was prohibited from having activities on the property or from turning the soil due to contamination, and there was no evidence that children continued to use the property as a park.

Katherine E. McMahon and Travis Lynch, for the commonwealth

Deirdre Gleason for the defendant-appellant

Estate of Kendall v. MassHealth

SJC-12881

At issue is the case, in which MassHealth is seeking to recover benefits from a decedent's estate claimed more than three years after the decedent's death, is whether the Uniform Probate Code, G.L.c. 190B, 3-108, precludes such recovery or whether G.L.c. 190B, 803(f), creates an exception to the limitation on presentation of claims set forth in G.L.c. 190B, 3-108.

Meredith Fine for the plaintiff-appellant

Ingrid C. Schroffner and David R. Marks, for the defendant-appellee

D'Allesandro, et al. v. Lennar Hingham Holdings, LLC, et al.

SJC-12891

The U.S. District Court has certified the following question: "Where the factual record supports the conclusion that a builder or developer was engaged in the...