M  I  S  C  E  L  L  A  N  I  A  :
Among other things, this quarter the Court reiterated its message to plaintiffs bringing derivative claims that pre-suit demand cannot be cavalierly ignored as “futile.”

Sullivan v. Target Corp., 2006 Mass. Super. LEXIS 48
(February 24, 2005) (Van Gestel, J.).

The Court entered judgment approving the settlement of a class action lawsuit against Target Corporation and a member of the class appealed. The putative appellant was not a named class representative and had not intervened as a party to the lawsuit. Calling the objector the “consummate gadfly,” the Court

denied his motion to docket his appeal. “[T]o permit a single non-party objector . . . to appeal . . ., and thereby delay and interfere with the benefits to the entire class, would be inconsistent with the array of safeguards that Massachusetts law mandates for the protection and benefit of an approved class.” 

Shaev v. Alvord, 2005 Mass. Super. LEXIS 147
(March 23, 2005) (Van Gestel, J.).

The Court dismissed a derivative action for failure to plead demand futility with sufficient particularity. The mere

assumption that the directors were “complicit in the [the] waste” does not carry the plaintiff’s burden.