Walter E. Fernald Corporation v. The Governor & others

Summary

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that sovereign immunity does not bar an action in which a plaintiff seeks to establish its ownership of specified parcels of recorded land. The court affirmed a Land Court judgment declaring that the Walter E. Fernald Corporation, rather than the Commonwealth, owned the Templeton parcels. It concluded that the corporation remained an entity separate from the Commonwealth despite the State’s involvement in managing and funding the school it established.

Holdings

1. Common-law sovereign immunity does not apply to an action in which a plaintiff asserts its own ownership of specified parcels of recorded land.
2. The Walter E. Fernald Corporation remained an entity independent of the Commonwealth; the fact that its school became a state institution did not convert the corporation into a state agency.
3. The corporation owned all six Templeton parcels, and the Land Court properly entered summary judgment declaring its title free of Commonwealth claims.

Questions Presented

1. Whether sovereign immunity barred the corporation's declaratory action asserting its own ownership of specified parcels of recorded land.
2. Whether the Walter E. Fernald Corporation became a Commonwealth agency during the period when the school it established became a state institution.
3. Whether the deeds and surrounding circumstances established that the corporation, rather than the Commonwealth, owned the Templeton parcels.

Disposition

affirmed