A personal injury plaintiff awarded $10 million for sexual assault in state court could not proceed with collection against that portion of a $288,000 judgment obtained by the defendant in an unrelated employment action that represented a federal judge’s assessment of attorneys’ fees and costs, the Appeals Court has determined.

In November 2021, a Franklin Superior Court jury awarded plaintiff Jane Doe $10 million in damages on her claims against Jampa Gonpo for sexual assault and emotional distress.

To secure partial payment of the verdict, the plaintiff sought to reach and apply a $288,000 judgment that Gonpo had obtained earlier that year in a federal action alleging wage and hour violations of state law and the Fair Labor Standards Act.

Superior Court Judge Michael J. Callan granted Doe’s motions for post-judgment security and permanent injunction, but only insofar as the federal judgment’s compensatory damages and interest.

Callan found that Gonpo’s lawyers in the federal case — members of Troy Law Firm in New York — had a superior interest in $106,239 in attorneys’ fees and costs awarded by the judge in that case.

Doe argued on appeal that because under Massachusetts wage-and-hour law an award of fees and costs is deemed to be an award to the prevailing employee rather than to the employee’s attorneys, Gonpo’s lawyers did not hold an enforceable security interest on their fees and costs.

The Appeals Court panel found Doe was correct in her reading of Massachusetts...

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