Section 118: Temporary appellate relief from interlocutory orders; appeals to appeals court or supreme judicial court
Section 118. A party aggrieved by an interlocutory order of a trial court justice in the superior court department, the housing court department, the land court department, the juvenile court department or the probate and family court department may file, within thirty days of the entry of such order, a petition in the appropriate appellate court seeking relief from such order. A single justice of the appellate court may, in his discretion, grant the same relief as an appellate court is authorized to grant pending an appeal under section one hundred and seventeen. If the petition is filed with respect to a discovery order and is denied, the single justice may, after such hearing as the single justice in his discretion deems appropriate, require the petitioning party or the attorney advising the petition or both of them to pay to the party who opposed the petition the reasonable expenses incurred in opposing the petition, including attorney's fees, unless the court finds that the filing of the petition was substantially justified or that other circumstances make an award of expenses unjust.
A party aggrieved by an interlocutory order of a trial court justice in the superior court department, the housing court department, the land court department or the probate and family court department, granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving a preliminary injunction, or refusing to dissolve a preliminary injunction, or a party aggrieved by an interlocutory order of a single justice of the appellate court granting a petition for relief from such an order, may appeal therefrom to the appeals court or, subject to the provisions of section ten of chapter two hundred and eleven A, to the supreme judicial court, which shall affirm, modify, vacate, set aside, reverse the order or remand the cause and direct the entry of such appropriate order as may be just under the circumstances. An appeal under this paragraph shall be taken within thirty days of the date of the entry of the interlocutory order and in accordance with the Massachusetts rules of appellate procedure. Pursuant to action taken by the appellate court the cause shall be remanded to the trial court for further proceedings.
The filing of a petition hereunder shall not suspend the execution of the order which is the subject of the petition, except as otherwise ordered by a single justice of the appellate court.