Straight answers on Massachusetts injury law

In-depth answers to the questions Massachusetts injury clients ask most, each grounded in the controlling statute and written to be read the day something goes wrong. General legal information, not legal advice. For your specific situation, telephone the firm.

01
Workers Compensation
Can You Work Another Job While on Workers' Comp in Massachusetts?

Yes, you can work another job while on workers' comp in Massachusetts, but the work changes which benefit you receive and how much it pays, and every dollar you earn has to be reported to the insurer. Under M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 11D, anyone entitled to weekly compensation has "an affirmative duty to report to the insurer all earnings, including wages or salary earned from self-employment." Once you are earning, total incapacity benefits under sec. 34 generally give way to partial incapacity benefits under sec. 35, which pay sixty percent of the difference between your average weekly wage before the injury and what you can earn now, capped at seventy-five percent of the total incapacity rate. Working is not fraud. Working and not telling the insurer can be.
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02
Car Accidents
Which Massachusetts Towns Record the Most Hit-and-Run Crashes?

Worcester records the most hit-and-run crashes of any Massachusetts community, 3,090 from 2022 through 2024, and Cambridge and Malden record the highest shares, about 32 per cent of all their crashes against 8.77 per cent statewide, but the town figures describe how each police department records crashes almost as much as how drivers behave. The statewide pattern is the part to trust, and it is sharper than the town list: a hit-and-run is far less likely than other crashes to injure anyone, except when the person struck is on foot. Nineteen of the 28 fatal hit-and-run crashes in those three years killed a pedestrian.
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03
Workers Compensation
Is Workers' Comp Taxable in Massachusetts?

Workers' compensation benefits paid under Massachusetts chapter 152 are not taxable income on your federal return or your Massachusetts return, with one exception most people never hear about: if you also receive Social Security Disability and your SSDI check is reduced because of the comp, the slice of comp equal to that reduction is treated as a Social Security benefit and can be federally taxable, while Massachusetts subtracts it again on the state return. Everything else on the subject is detail around that sentence. The weekly check under M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 34 or sec. 35, the specific-injury payment under sec. 36, medical payments, and a lump sum settlement under sec. 48 are all amounts "received under workmen's compensation acts," which 26 U.S.C. sec. 104(a)(1) excludes from gross income.
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04
Car Accidents
What Kind of Crash Is Most Common in Your Massachusetts Town?

In most Massachusetts towns the most common crash is a rear-end collision, but in the older cities it is the angle crash at an intersection, and in a handful of rural towns it is a single vehicle leaving the road: of the 116 communities with at least 1,000 crashes recorded from 2022 through 2024, rear-end collisions lead in 70, angle collisions in 29, single vehicle crashes in 16, and same-direction sideswipes in exactly one, Cambridge. The mix is not trivia. It follows the road network a town has, and it moves the severity numbers in a way the town's total crash count never shows.
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05
GLP-1 Injuries
Can You Sue Over Vision Loss From Ozempic or Another GLP-1 in Massachusetts?

Yes, and the claims now have their own federal court. If you lost vision in one eye while taking Ozempic, Wegovy, Saxenda, Trulicity or another GLP-1 drug and were diagnosed with NAION, an eye stroke, you may have a product liability claim against the manufacturer. On December 15, 2025 the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation created a dedicated federal litigation for exactly these cases, MDL No. 3163, before Judge Karen S. Marston in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The allegation at the centre of it is a gap you can check yourself: European regulators required NAION to be added to the semaglutide label on June 6, 2025, and the United States prescribing information reviewed for this page, all 34 pages of it, does not contain the word NAION, the phrase ischemic optic neuropathy, or the phrase optic neuropathy anywhere. If that happened to you or to someone in your family, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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06
Pedestrian Accidents
Which Massachusetts Speed Limits Carry the Deadliest Crashes?

The fatal rate rises with every step up the posted limit, and the injury rate does not follow it. Across the 372,119 Massachusetts crashes from 2022 through 2024 that carry a posted speed limit, roads posted 5 to 30 miles per hour produced 1.89 fatal crashes per 1,000, roads posted 35 to 45 produced 3.29, and roads posted 50 to 65 produced 4.93. That is the fatal rate more than doubling. The share of crashes that injured somebody moves differently: 21.50 per cent on the slow roads, 25.92 per cent on the middle band, and then back down to 24.34 per cent on the fastest ones. Two measures of severity, pulled from the same records, that behave in two different ways. These figures come from the MassDOT IMPACT crash records, the same source behind this site's Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a Massachusetts crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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07
Off-Road Vehicles
Who Is Liable for a Snowmobile or ATV Injury in Massachusetts?

The operator is liable for their own negligence, and in Massachusetts the adult who handed over the machine very often is too. M.G.L. c. 90B, sec. 26E provides that any person aged 18 or older with custody or control of a snow vehicle or recreation vehicle who knowingly permits someone under 18 to operate it "shall be held liable, jointly and severally with the operator, for any damage or injuries caused by such operator's operation of the vehicle." Subsection (b) extends the same joint liability to permitting an adult to operate in violation of the chapter, and subsection (c) closes the two escape hatches most people reach for: "Lack of ownership of the vehicle or mistake as to the age of the operator shall not be defenses." Almost nobody finds that section, because snowmobiles and ATVs are not governed by chapter 90, the motor vehicle law. They are governed by chapter 90B, the same chapter that governs boats. To talk through a Massachusetts off-road crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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08
Bicycle Law
Are Electric Bikes Legal in Massachusetts?

Yes. Electric bicycles are legal in Massachusetts, and they have a statute of their own, M.G.L. c. 85, sec. 11B3/4, which almost nobody sends riders to. That section gives an e-bike rider "all of the rights and privileges" and "all of the duties" of a bicycle rider, with one reversal that matters more than any other rule on the device: an electric bicycle may not be ridden on a sidewalk, while an ordinary bicycle may be, outside a business district, when safety requires it. Massachusetts law also recognises only two kinds of electric bicycle. Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 1 an "electric bicycle" has fully operable pedals and a motor of 750 watts or less, and must meet the definition of a class 1 or a class 2 machine. A class 1 assists only while the rider is pedaling and cuts out at 20 miles per hour. A class 2 can propel the bicycle without pedaling and also cannot assist past 20. There is no class 3 in the Massachusetts definitions, and a device that exceeds the two that exist is not an "electric bicycle" under the chapter, which changes which rules reach it. To talk through a Massachusetts e-bike crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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09
Fault and Liability
Do Snow and Ice Cause the Deadliest Crashes in Massachusetts?

No, and the data runs hard the other way. MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 hold 405,240 Massachusetts crashes. Dry pavement carried 317,337 of them and 896 of the deaths, a rate of 2.82 fatal crashes per 1,000. Snow-covered roads carried 11,465 crashes and 6 deaths, a rate of 0.52 per 1,000. Ice carried 5,751 crashes and 5 deaths, 0.87 per 1,000. Taken together, snow, ice and slush account for 18,896 crashes, 4.66 per cent of the three-year total, at 0.79 fatal per 1,000, which is less than a third of the dry-pavement rate and well under the statewide figure of 2.68. The injury rate moves the same way: 23.33 per cent of dry-pavement crashes involved an injury against 15.40 per cent on snow, ice or slush. Winter produces more crashes and less severe ones. Where winter does show up is geographic, and sharply so: 8.76 per cent of Fitchburg's crashes happened on snow, ice or slush, against 1.79 per cent of Boston's, a difference of nearly five to one. To talk through a Massachusetts crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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10
Dog Bites
What Happens When a Dog Attacks Another Dog in Massachusetts?

The owner of the attacking dog is liable, under the same strict liability statute that applies when a dog bites a person. M.G.L. c. 140, sec. 155 makes the owner or keeper liable "if any dog shall do any damage to either the body or property of any person," and the word that does the work in a dog-on-dog case is property. You do not have to prove the other owner was careless, and you do not have to prove the dog had ever attacked anything before. What you can recover is your economic loss, which in practice means the veterinary bills and, if your dog was killed, its value. What you cannot recover in Massachusetts is money for your own grief, and the case that settles that point is one where the owners lost almost everything by asking only for grief. There is also a section a few pages later in the same chapter that appears to bar the claim outright and does not. To talk through what happened to your dog, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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11
Wrongful Death
Are Massachusetts Crashes More Dangerous at Night?

Yes, and the size of the gap is larger than almost anyone expects. Across the 405,239 crashes MassDOT recorded in Massachusetts from 2022 through 2024, 110,263 happened after dark. That is 27.21 per cent of the crashes. Those same hours account for 518 of the state's 1,087 fatal crashes, which is 47.65 per cent of the deaths. Put the two numbers side by side and the shape of the problem is clear: roughly a quarter of the crashes produce roughly half of the fatalities. The fatal rate in daylight is 1.81 per 1,000 crashes. On a lit road after dark it is 3.74. On an unlit road after dark it is 8.49, which is 4.69 times the daylight rate. What does not change is the injury rate, and that turns out to be the most revealing number on this page. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked community by community in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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12
Pedestrian Accidents
Which Massachusetts Communities Have the Most Driveway Crashes?

Springfield, by raw count, with 333 of the 8,658 driveway crashes MassDOT recorded statewide from 2022 through 2024. But the count is the less interesting ranking, because big cities have more of everything. Measured as a share of a community's own crashes, the answer changes completely: Northborough leads at 7.03 per cent and Waltham is second at 6.92 per cent, against a statewide figure of 2.14 per cent. Boston, which records more crashes than any community in Massachusetts at 17,407, has the lowest driveway share of any large community in the state at 0.22 per cent, or 39 crashes in three years. Waltham, with a quarter of Boston's crash volume, records almost eight times as many driveway crashes. This is the one crash pattern in the MassDOT data where the map of Massachusetts turns upside down, and the suburbs carry the burden the cities do not. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked community by community in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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13
Car Accidents
What Is the Most Common Type of Car Crash in Massachusetts?

The rear-end collision. Of the 405,239 crashes MassDOT recorded in Massachusetts from 2022 through 2024, 99,423 were coded rear-end, which is 24.53 per cent, or close to one crash in four. Angle collisions are second at 96,896, and single vehicle crashes third at 92,620. Those three account for 71.30 per cent of everything that happened on Massachusetts roads across the three years. The more useful finding is what happens when you set the frequency ranking beside the severity ranking, because they are almost inverted. The most common crash type in Massachusetts is also among its least deadly: rear-end collisions were fatal in 0.79 of every 1,000, against a statewide average of 2.68. The deadliest type by a wide margin is the head-on, which is only 2.37 per cent of crashes and 14.44 per cent of the deaths. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked community by community in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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14
Fault and Liability
Who Is at Fault in a Massachusetts Intersection Accident?

Massachusetts answers that question with two statutes most drivers have never read, and they are far more specific than the general expectation that everyone drives carefully. M.G.L. c. 89, sec. 8 puts four separate duties in a single paragraph: when two vehicles reach an intersection at about the same instant the driver on the left yields to the driver on the right, a driver turning left across oncoming traffic yields until the turn can be made with reasonable safety, a driver entering a rotary yields to traffic already in it, and none of those rules applies where a police officer or a lawfully erected sign or signal directs otherwise. M.G.L. c. 89, sec. 9 adds the sign rules, and it contains something unusual: if a driver goes past a yield sign without stopping and then collides with a vehicle in the intersection, the statute says that collision "shall be deemed prima facie evidence of his failure to yield the right of way." Fault is still apportioned after that, because Massachusetts compares negligence rather than assigning it whole. To talk through a specific intersection crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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15
Bicycle Crash Data
Which Massachusetts Communities Have the Most Intersection Crashes?

Lowell, and by a clear margin. Of the 7,781 crashes MassDOT recorded in Lowell from 2022 through 2024, 3,966 happened at an intersection, which is 50.97 per cent. No other Massachusetts community with a meaningful crash volume crosses half. Lawrence is second at 49.62 per cent and Brockton third at 49.23 per cent. The statewide figure is 34.46 per cent, so about one Massachusetts crash in three is at a junction, and in Lowell it is one in two. The most surprising entry is at the other end of the table: Boston records more crashes than any community in the state, 17,407, and the lowest intersection share of the thirty largest at 29.76 per cent. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked community by community in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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16
Car Accidents
Which Massachusetts Communities Have the Most Crashes on Route 28?

Barnstable, and it is not close. Across the eight Massachusetts communities whose 2024 road breakdowns name Route 28, MassDOT crash records carry 394 crashes on segments the source tags as Route 28 or SR 28. Barnstable accounts for 211 of them, which is 53.55 percent of the whole corridor, on two entries: Falmouth Road at 173 and Iyannough Road at 38. Yarmouth is second at 99, Dennis third at 26, and then the figure collapses. Randolph and Lawrence record 13 each, Bourne and Methuen 11 each, and Reading 10. The pattern underneath that is the real finding. Route 28 runs from the Lower Cape to the New Hampshire line, but 347 of the 394 crashes, 88.07 percent, are in the four Cape communities at its southern end. All figures come from MassDOT IMPACT Open Crash Data. To discuss a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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17
Medical Malpractice
What Is Considered Medical Malpractice in Massachusetts?

Medical malpractice in Massachusetts is care that fell below the standard a reasonably competent practitioner in the same field would have met, where that failure actually caused a patient harm. A poor result on its own is not malpractice. The Legislature wrote that distinction directly into the screening statute: M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 60B requires a tribunal to decide whether the evidence raises "a legitimate question of liability appropriate for judicial inquiry or whether the plaintiff's case is merely an unfortunate medical result." Those are the two boxes, and most disappointing outcomes belong in the second one. A Massachusetts claim has to show four things: that a provider owed the patient a duty, that the provider breached the applicable standard of care, that the breach caused the injury, and that the injury produced damages. There is also a second and separate route to liability that has nothing to do with technical skill, which is a failure to obtain informed consent. Before any of it reaches a courtroom, c. 231, sec. 60L requires 182 days of written notice to the provider.
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18
Workers Compensation
Is Workers Comp Required for Every Employer in Massachusetts?

Almost every employer in Massachusetts must carry workers compensation, including a business with a single employee. M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 25A says that "every employer shall provide for the payment to his employees of the compensation provided for by this chapter," either by buying a policy from an insurer, by joining a licensed self-insurance group, or by holding a self-insurance license from the state. There is no minimum headcount and no exemption for part-time staff. The exceptions that do exist are narrow and mostly written into the definitions in section 1: certain part-time domestic workers, corporate officers who own at least 25 percent of the company and file a written waiver, sole proprietors and partners covering themselves, and a short list of specialised occupations. An employer that should carry coverage and does not can be shut down with a stop work order under section 25C, fined per day, and prosecuted. For the injured worker, the more important point is that a missing policy does not end the claim. Section 65 created a state Workers' Compensation Trust Fund that pays approved claims against uninsured employers, and section 66 lets the worker sue that employer in court with its usual defenses stripped away.
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19
Car Accidents
What Happens When an Out-of-State Driver Hits You in a Massachusetts Border Town?

If a driver from New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut or anywhere else hits you on a Massachusetts road, the claim is handled in Massachusetts, under Massachusetts rules, and the fact that the other car has out-of-state plates changes less than most people expect. Your own Massachusetts personal injury protection still pays the first layer of medical bills and lost wages, and M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A specifically extends PIP to you and your household when you are hurt by "a motor vehicle not insured by a policy or bond providing personal injury protection." Under c. 90, sec. 3A, simply driving on a Massachusetts way is "deemed equivalent to an appointment" of the Registrar of Motor Vehicles as the nonresident driver's agent for service of a lawsuit, so you do not have to chase the driver into another state to sue. What does change is the insurance picture. A visiting driver is not required to carry a Massachusetts-standard policy for short visits, and New Hampshire's law is built around proving financial responsibility after a crash rather than buying a policy to register a car. That makes your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage matter more on the border than almost anywhere else. The thirteen Massachusetts cities and towns on the main crossings into those three states recorded 32,624 crashes from 2022 through 2024, 8.05 percent of the state total.
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20
Car Accidents
Which Court Hears a Car Accident Case in Berkshire, Franklin or Hampshire County, Massachusetts?

It depends on how much the case is worth. A larger civil case is heard in the Superior Court, and G.L. c. 212, sec. 14 fixes where each of the three western counties holds its regular sittings: "For Berkshire, at Pittsfield," "For Franklin, at Greenfield," and "For Hampshire, at Northampton." A smaller case is heard in the District Court, and there the geography is finer, because these three counties are divided into seven District Court divisions rather than one court per county. Berkshire has three, northern at Adams, central at Pittsfield and southern at Great Barrington and Lee. Franklin has two, the Franklin court at Greenfield and the eastern Franklin court at Orange. Hampshire has two, the Hampshire court at Northampton and the eastern Hampshire court at Belchertown. Which one covers a given crash is set town by town in G.L. c. 218, sec. 1, and the lists are not what the map suggests: the court held at Orange draws two thirds of its crashes from Athol, which is in Worcester County, and four Berkshire towns sit inside two divisions at once. Every territory list below is transcribed from that statute, and every crash figure is summed from MassDOT records for 2022 through 2024. To talk through a crash anywhere in western Massachusetts, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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21
Workers Compensation
Can You Get Workers Comp If the Accident Was Your Fault in Massachusetts?

Yes, in nearly every case. Massachusetts workers compensation does not ask who caused the injury. M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 26 conditions benefits on one thing, that an employee "receives a personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment," and the section says nothing at all about fault. You can cause your own injury through ordinary carelessness, inattention, haste, or by ignoring a rule you knew about, and the claim is still payable. The chapter contains one fault based bar and it is a narrow one. M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 27 provides that "If the employee is injured by reason of his serious and wilful misconduct, he shall not receive compensation; but this provision shall not bar compensation to his dependents if the injury results in death." Serious and wilful misconduct is a much higher standard than being at fault, which is why the honest answer to the question in the title is almost always yes. To talk through a Massachusetts work injury, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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22
Bicycle Crash Data
What Do the Numbers Say About Crashes on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, Massachusetts?

They say the islands are a bicycle story, and the size of the effect is larger than anything on the mainland outside two cities. The six island communities that appear in MassDOT's crash records recorded 1,451 crashes from 2022 through 2024, which is 0.36 percent of the 405,239 crashes Massachusetts recorded over those three years. Those same 1,451 crashes account for 1.54 percent of every bicycle crash in the Commonwealth. Put as a rate, 46.18 of every 1,000 island crashes involved a bicycle against a statewide 10.75, which is 4.3 times the state. Nantucket on its own runs at 50.51 per 1,000, fifth highest of the 249 Massachusetts communities recording at least 200 crashes, behind only Cambridge, Somerville, Provincetown and Brookline. Edgartown is eighth. Pedestrians are over-represented too, at 24.12 per 1,000 against 14.76. And the islands are below the state on the measure people expect them to be above: 20.40 percent of island crashes involved an injury against 22.89 percent statewide. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024. To talk through a crash on either island, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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23
Motorcycle Accidents
Can You Ride a Motorcycle With a Learner's Permit in Massachusetts?

Yes, but two things are off the table and both are in the statute rather than in anyone's policy manual. G.L. c. 90, sec. 8B provides that a learner's permit restricted to the operation of a motorcycle "shall not entitle him to carry any passenger while operating such motorcycle upon any way or to operate a motorcycle upon any way at any time after sunset or before sunrise." No passenger, and no riding in the dark. Those are the two motorcycle-specific limits, they apply from the day the permit is issued, and they do not soften with experience. Around them sits the ordinary permit machinery: you must be at least sixteen, the permit runs two years or until you are licensed, and if you are under eighteen there is a separate midnight to 5 a.m. bar on top. There is also a renewal trap that catches riders who let the season go by without booking a road test, and a cross-reference in the statute that points at a section of the General Laws that no longer exists. To talk through a Massachusetts motorcycle crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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24
Waivers and Releases
Can a Massachusetts Injury Settlement Be Kept Confidential?

Usually yes. A confidentiality clause is an ordinary contract term, insurers ask for one in a large share of Massachusetts injury settlements, and once both sides sign it the promise is enforceable like any other promise in the release. What the clause cannot do is override a statute. Four Massachusetts situations put the terms of a settlement in front of a judge or a state agency regardless of what the parties agreed: a settlement for a minor or incompetent person submitted for approval under M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 140C1/2, a third party settlement where workers compensation was paid, which under M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 15 cannot be made "without the approval of either the board, the reviewing board, or the court in which the action has been commenced after a hearing", a workers compensation lump sum, which under M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 48 has to be reviewed and approved before it is perfected, and a death case, where M.G.L. c. 229, sec. 2 requires the damages to be "recovered in an action of tort by the executor or administrator of the deceased", which means an estate. Separately, a repayment obligation does not care about the clause at all: M.G.L. c. 118E, sec. 22 requires repayment to the executive office of health and human services out of the settlement, and M.G.L. c. 111, sec. 70A gives a hospital a lien on the recovery. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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25
Pedestrian Accidents
What Do the Crash Numbers Show on the Massachusetts North Shore?

They show a region that produces far more crashes involving people on foot than the rest of Massachusetts and far fewer deaths. The 19 communities of the North Shore recorded 22,332 crashes from 2022 through 2024 in MassDOT records, which is 5.51 percent of the 405,239 crashes in the Commonwealth over those three years. Their share of pedestrian crashes is 8.70 percent, well above their share of crashes, and their share of fatal crashes is 4.05 percent, well below it. As rates, the North Shore runs 23.28 crashes involving a pedestrian per 1,000 crashes against 14.26 in the rest of the state, and 1.97 fatal crashes per 1,000 against 2.72. The spread inside the region is larger than the gap between the region and the state: Salem records 51.28 pedestrian crashes per 1,000 and four communities record none at all, while Lynn, which has more crashes than anywhere else on the North Shore at 6,074, has one of its lowest fatal rates at 1.48 per 1,000. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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26
Pedestrian Accidents
Do Massachusetts Gateway Cities Have More Crashes Than the Rest of the State?

Yes, and by a wider margin than their size suggests. The 26 communities the Commonwealth designates as Gateway Cities recorded 137,219 crashes from 2022 through 2024, which is 33.86 percent of all 405,239 crashes in Massachusetts over those three years. Their share of pedestrian crashes is far higher still at 47.64 percent, meaning close to half of every Massachusetts crash involving a person on foot happened in one of these 26 places. Their share of fatal crashes runs the other way at 25.02 percent, the lowest of any measure here. Expressed as rates, the Gateway Cities run 20.76 pedestrian crashes per 1,000 crashes against 11.68 in the rest of the state, and 1.98 fatal crashes per 1,000 against 3.04 in the rest of the state. The more useful finding is inside the group rather than about it: the spread between these 26 communities is roughly seven-fold on both measures, from Salem at 51.28 pedestrian crashes per 1,000 down to Taunton and Leominster at 6.77, and from Chicopee at 4.20 fatal crashes per 1,000 down to Fitchburg at 0.60. Gateway City is an economic designation under M.G.L. c. 23A, sec. 3A, and it does not describe a single road-safety profile. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked community by community in the Massachusetts crash report. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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27
Traffic Violations
When Do You Have to Stop for a School Bus in Massachusetts?

You must bring your vehicle to a full stop before you reach a school bus that is displaying flashing red signal lamps, and you must stay stopped until those lamps go off. There is one exception in the statute and it is narrow: a driver approaching from the opposite direction on a divided highway. The rule is in M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 14, it applies in both directions on an ordinary two-way road, and the penalties are among the heaviest attached to any everyday Massachusetts traffic rule: a fine of not less than $250 for a first offense, not less than $500 nor more than $1,000 for a second, and not less than $1,000 nor more than $2,000 for a third or subsequent offense. A second conviction also carries immediate license revocation, with no new license for 6 months, and a third carries revocation with no new license for 1 year. A separate sentence in the same section bars any driver from operating within 100 feet behind a school bus. Massachusetts crash records show 5,980 crashes involving a pedestrian from 2022 through 2024, which is the category of harm the stopping rule exists to address, although the dataset does not separate out crashes at school bus stops. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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28
Local Crash Data
Which Massachusetts Communities Have the Most Crashes on Central Street?

Central Street recorded 372 crashes across Massachusetts in 2024, which places it sixth on the statewide road list and fifth among street names, behind Main Street, Washington Street, Pleasant Street, Interstate 93 northbound and Broadway. Nine communities carry a Central Street on their 2024 high-crash road lists: Stoughton, Peabody, East Bridgewater, Leominster, Franklin, Foxborough, Natick, Hudson and Acton. Stoughton's Central Street alone records 68 crashes, which is the 63rd busiest single named-road entry in the dataset and by a wide margin the largest Central Street entry in it. What makes this piece worth reading is that it does not repeat what the Main Street and Broadway analyses found. Those two streets ran well above the statewide pedestrian crash rate and well below the fatal rate. Central Street does neither. Across the three years from 2022 through 2024 its nine communities recorded 17,370 crashes, 35 fatal, 3,749 involving injury, 130 involving a bicycle and 151 involving a pedestrian, which puts them below the statewide figure on all four measures. The conclusion is that a shared street name is not a safety signature. It is a record of how and when a town was laid out. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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29
Premises Liability
What Happens If Someone Falls on Your Property in Massachusetts?

In most cases what happens is that your insurer handles it and you pay nothing personally. A fall on your land is not automatically your fault in Massachusetts, and it does not become your fault because it happened on your property. Since Mounsey v. Ellard, 363 Mass. 693 (1973), a Massachusetts property owner owes every lawful visitor one single duty, reasonable care in all the circumstances, and the injured person has to prove that duty was breached and that the breach caused the injury. What actually happens next is procedural: you report it to your homeowners or renters carrier, the carrier takes over both the defense and the payment, and the small medical payments coverage in most policies can cover the visitor's first bills without anyone deciding fault at all. The two rules that surprise Massachusetts owners most are that snow and ice are no longer treated differently from any other hazard, and that the thirty day written notice for a snow and ice claim in M.G.L. c. 84, sec. 21 is not the deadline people think it is, because the statute says failure to give it is not a defense unless the defendant proves he was prejudiced by it. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Local Crash Data
Which Massachusetts Cities Have the Most Injury Crashes?

Boston records more injury crashes than any other community in Massachusetts, 4,534 across 2022, 2023 and 2024, followed by Springfield with 3,783 and Worcester with 3,276, according to MassDOT IMPACT Open Crash Data. The count is the smaller part of the story. Statewide, 228.9 of every 1,000 crashes involved an injury, a little under one in four. In Brockton the figure is 352.9 and in Springfield 340.5, better than one in three. Springfield recorded 4,489 fewer crashes than Worcester and still recorded 507 more injury crashes. And the pattern runs in the opposite direction from fatal crashes: the bigger and denser the community, the more likely a crash is to hurt someone, while the smaller the community, the more likely it is to kill. Every figure below covers all 349 Massachusetts communities. If you were hurt in a crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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31
OUI Law
What Is the Legal Blood Alcohol Limit in Massachusetts?

The legal blood alcohol limit for driving in Massachusetts is 0.08 per cent. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24 makes it a crime to operate a motor vehicle "with a percentage, by weight, of alcohol in their blood of eight one-hundredths or greater, or while under the influence of intoxicating liquor." Two lower figures apply to particular drivers. Anyone under 21 who tests at 0.02 or higher loses their license under a separate statute, and anyone driving a commercial motor vehicle who tests at 0.04 or higher is disqualified from commercial driving for a year. The single word that matters most in the statute, though, is not a number. It is "or." A driver who blows under 0.08 can still be charged if the evidence shows they were under the influence, so 0.08 is a ceiling on what is automatically unlawful, not a floor on what is safe. Massachusetts OUI charges are evaluated on the same intake call at Jim Glaser Law: the attorney listens to the facts and either handles the matter or connects the client with a Massachusetts criminal-defense partner attorney at no extra cost. Call (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Local Crash Data
Where Do the Most Fatal Crashes Happen in Massachusetts?

Boston records more fatal crashes than any other community in Massachusetts, 65 of them across 2022, 2023 and 2024, followed by Springfield with 44 and Worcester with 29. That is the answer to the question as asked, and on its own it is misleading. Boston also records more crashes of every kind than anywhere else, 17,407 in the same three years, so a high fatal count is partly just a consequence of volume. Measured the other way, as the share of crashes that turn out to be fatal, Boston is not close to the top and several small towns are three times worse than the statewide figure. The full picture takes both numbers. Every figure below comes from MassDOT IMPACT Open Crash Data for calendar years 2022 through 2024, covering all 349 Massachusetts communities. If you have lost someone in a crash and need to understand what a claim involves, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Workers Compensation
What Is a Workers Comp Settlement Worth in Massachusetts?

A Massachusetts workers compensation case is worth the sum of four statutory pieces, and pain and suffering is not one of them. That is the single most important thing to understand before anyone quotes you a number. Chapter 152 of the General Laws replaced the right to sue your employer with a schedule of benefits, and the schedule is arithmetic: weekly wage replacement under M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 34, sec. 35 or sec. 34A, a separate payment for permanent loss of function or disfigurement under sec. 36, medical treatment that the insurer pays for directly, and, if the case is resolved by lump sum under sec. 48, a negotiated buyout of what the weekly benefits would have been worth. Nobody can tell you what a case is worth without your average weekly wage, your work status, and a permanency opinion, and anyone who gives you a figure without those three things is guessing. To talk through a specific injury, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Bicycle Crash Data
Which Massachusetts City Has the Most Bicycle Crashes?

Cambridge. MassDOT crash records show 384 crashes involving a bicycle in Cambridge across 2022, 2023 and 2024, which is more than any other community in the Commonwealth and more than Boston, where 273 were recorded over the same three years. That result is worth sitting with, because Boston recorded 17,407 crashes of all kinds in that period against Cambridge's 4,774. Boston has roughly three and a half times as much crash volume and fewer bicycle crashes. Behind those two come Somerville at 144, Springfield at 128 and Worcester at 116. Measured as a share of each community's own crashes, the gap is starker still: 80.44 of every 1,000 Cambridge crashes involved a bicycle, against a statewide figure of 10.75. All figures here come from MassDOT IMPACT Open Crash Data covering all 349 Massachusetts cities and towns. To discuss a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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35
Dog Bites
What Are the Dog Leash Laws in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts has no statewide leash law. There is no general statute anywhere in the General Laws that says a dog must be on a leash in public, which is why the honest answer to this question is always local: the rule that applies to you was written by your city or town, not by the Legislature. What state law does is hand municipalities the power to write that rule, in two places, M.G.L. c. 140, sec. 167 and M.G.L. c. 140, sec. 173. Separately, and this catches people out, Massachusetts does regulate one form of restraint statewide, in M.G.L. c. 140, sec. 174E, which limits how long and under what conditions a dog may be chained or tethered outside. And none of it decides who pays when a dog bites, because M.G.L. c. 140, sec. 155 makes an owner liable for the damage a dog does whether or not the dog was leashed. To discuss a specific incident, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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36
Fault and Liability
Who Is at Fault in a Parking Lot Accident in Massachusetts?

Somebody is at fault. The idea that a Massachusetts parking lot is a no fault zone where insurers automatically split the claim down the middle is folklore, and the regulation that actually decides the question says the opposite in plain words. The Standards of Fault at 211 CMR 74.04 are applied by insurers and by the Board of Appeal on Motor Vehicle Liability Policies and Bonds whenever they decide whether an operator was more than 50 per cent at fault, and 211 CMR 74.03 defines an Accident as "an unexpected, unintended event arising out of the ownership, maintenance or use of a Private Passenger Motor Vehicle that results in a claim to an Insurer under a Private Passenger Motor Vehicle insurance policy." There is no public way requirement anywhere in that definition. One of the standards names parking lots outright. So the real question is not whether fault gets decided in a lot. It is which of two separate fault decisions you are asking about, because Massachusetts runs two of them and they answer different questions. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Local Crash Data
Which Massachusetts Towns Have the Most Pleasant Street Crashes?

Fall River. MassDOT's 2024 crash records show 117 crashes on Pleasant Street in Fall River, which is the largest figure recorded for any single Pleasant Street segment anywhere in Massachusetts, and it is the highest-crash road within a city that ranks fifth of all 349 Massachusetts communities for total crashes. Brockton is second at 83, Amherst third at 61 across three separately recorded segments, Weymouth fourth at 43 and Bridgewater fifth at 41. Fourteen Massachusetts cities and towns carry a Pleasant Street segment among their eight highest-crash roads, and together those fourteen town lists account for 444 crashes in that single year. On MassDOT's statewide top-road list, where each road name appears once rather than town by town, PLEASANT ST sits third at 633 crashes, behind MAIN ST at 2,672 and WASHINGTON ST at 1,118 and ahead of Interstate 93 northbound at 444 and BROADWAY at 402. The more interesting number is not the total. Across three years those fourteen communities recorded 9.06 per cent of every crash in Massachusetts, 11.51 per cent of every crash involving a pedestrian, and only 6.99 per cent of every fatal crash. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash on any of these streets, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Local Crash Data
Which Massachusetts Towns Have the Most Broadway Crashes?

Saugus. MassDOT's 2024 crash records show 152 crashes on Broadway in Saugus, across three separately recorded segments, which is more than any other Massachusetts community and nearly twice the next town on the list. Taunton is second at 82, Revere third at 66, Chelsea fourth at 55 and Malden fifth at 53. Twelve Massachusetts cities and towns carry a Broadway segment among their highest-crash roads, and together those twelve town lists account for 581 crashes in that single year. On MassDOT's statewide top-road list, where each name appears once, Broadway sits at 402 crashes, fifth overall and fourth among street names behind Main Street, Washington Street and Pleasant Street. The more interesting number is not the total. Across three years those twelve communities recorded 8.71 per cent of every crash in Massachusetts, 12.37 per cent of every crash involving a pedestrian, and only 5.06 per cent of every fatal crash. Broadway towns are where people get hit walking and are not where people are most often killed, and those two facts belong together rather than apart. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash on any of these streets, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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39
Insurance Coverage
Is Windshield Replacement Free in Massachusetts?

No. There is no Massachusetts law that makes windshield replacement free, and the belief that there is one is the most common misunderstanding about auto glass in the Commonwealth. What the law actually does is narrower and more useful to know. M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113O requires every insurer writing comprehensive coverage to make available, at the policyholder's option, a $100 deductible that applies specifically to glass damage. Available at your option is not free. It is a coverage you can elect and pay for, sitting underneath a comprehensive coverage that is itself optional in Massachusetts. If you carry comprehensive with the standard deductible and no glass endorsement, your deductible on a windshield is $500, and on a windshield that costs less than that to replace you will pay the whole bill yourself. The same statute also carries three rights most drivers have never been told about: you choose the repair shop, not the insurer; the insurer has seven days to pay once it has your completed claim form; and an insurer that unreasonably refuses can be made to pay double damages plus costs and your attorney's fees. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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40
Dog Bites
Do Beware of Dog Signs Affect Liability in Massachusetts?

No. A posted warning does not give a Massachusetts dog owner a defense, because the statute that decides these cases has no place to put one. M.G.L. c. 140, sec. 155 makes the owner or keeper liable for any damage a dog does to a person's body or property, with exactly three exceptions written into the sentence: the injured person was "committing a trespass or other tort, or was teasing, tormenting or abusing such dog". A sign is not on that list, and Massachusetts courts do not add to it. The argument owners actually make is the indirect one, that the sign turned a lawful visitor into a trespasser, and that argument runs into the same problem. Permission is what decides trespass, and a warning about a dog is not a withdrawal of permission to be there. What Massachusetts law does give weight to is a physical barrier rather than a printed one: M.G.L. c. 140, sec. 157 protects an owner whose dog was behind "a gated, fenced-in area if the gate was closed, whether locked or unlocked", and says nothing anywhere about signage. If a dog has injured you in Massachusetts, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is free.
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Local Crash Data
Which Court Hears an Essex County Injury Case in Massachusetts?

It depends on where in the county you were hurt and on how much the claim is worth, and Essex is a county where both halves of that answer have a wrinkle. M.G.L. c. 218, sec. 1 divides Essex into eight district court divisions covering thirty-four cities and towns, more than every Massachusetts county except Middlesex and Worcester at twelve each and Suffolk at nine. M.G.L. c. 212, sec. 14 then sends Superior Court business to three separate courthouses, at Salem, Lawrence and Newburyport; only one other county in the Commonwealth, Bristol, has three regular sittings. Which department hears the case turns on amount rather than geography: M.G.L. c. 212, sec. 3 and M.G.L. c. 218, sec. 19 both set the line at $25,000 "or an amount ordered from time to time by the supreme judicial court", and the SJC raised that procedural amount to $50,000 for civil actions commenced on or after January 1, 2020. One Essex town, West Newbury, answers to two district courts at once. Every crash figure below comes from MassDOT records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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42
Workers Compensation
Can You Travel or Take a Vacation While on Workers Comp in Massachusetts?

Yes. No section of the Massachusetts workers compensation act forbids an injured employee from leaving home, leaving the state, or getting on a plane, and there is no permission form to file before you go. What people are really asking is a different question, and it has a specific statutory answer: can a trip cost me my weekly check? The honest answer is that the trip itself cannot, but three things around it can. Under M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 8(2), an insurer already paying weekly benefits may modify or discontinue them only in an enumerated list of situations, and "we saw a photograph we did not like" is not one of them. The exception is timing. Under sec. 8(1), an insurer inside the first 180 days of payments may stop or reduce them on seven days written notice, which makes the same trip a much larger risk early in a claim than later. The other two risks are appointments rather than activities: missing an examination the insurer requested under sec. 45 suspends your right to compensation outright, and failing to report to an impartial medical examiner under sec. 11A, after due notice and without cause, is expressly made sufficient cause for that same suspension. Misrepresenting your condition is a separate and far more serious matter under sec. 14, which is criminal. To talk through a Massachusetts workers compensation claim, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is free.
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Local Crash Data
Which Court Hears a Worcester County Injury Case in Massachusetts?

The amount decides the level and the town decides the building, and in Worcester County the second half of that answer changed on July 1, 2025. G.L. c. 218, sec. 1 used to list a district court at Winchendon covering five towns in the north of the county. St. 2025, c. 9, sec. 58 deleted that paragraph, and sec. 57 rewrote the Gardner paragraph to absorb all five. So Ashburnham, Phillipston, Royalston, Templeton and Winchendon are now in the first district court of northern Worcester at Gardner, and any source written before that date sends them somewhere the statute no longer lists. On the money question, a claim reasonably likely to be worth more than the jurisdictional line belongs in the Superior Court, which under G.L. c. 212, sec. 14 sits for Worcester at two places rather than one, at Worcester and at Fitchburg; below that line it belongs in one of the county's ten district court divisions, second only to Middlesex's twelve; and a claim under $7,000 can go to small claims under G.L. c. 218, sec. 21, which carries a motor vehicle exception most people never hear about. Two towns also cross the county line in opposite directions, which the statute proves on its own face. Most claims settle with an insurer and never reach any of these buildings. This article is about what happens when yours does not. To talk through a Worcester County crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is free.
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44
Workers Compensation
Can You Be Fired While on Workers Comp in Massachusetts?

Yes, and that surprises almost everyone who asks. Massachusetts is an at will state, and filing a workers compensation claim does not freeze your job in place or convert you into a protected employee. What the law does is narrower and more specific than the protection people imagine: under M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 75B(2), no employer may discharge you, refuse to hire you, or otherwise discriminate against you because you exercised a right under the workers compensation act, or because you testified or cooperated in a proceeding under it. So a layoff that would have happened anyway is lawful. A termination aimed at the claim is not. The remedy is also not where people expect it: a sec. 75B case is filed in the Superior Court for the county where the violation happened, not at the Department of Industrial Accidents, and an employer found to have violated it owes lost wages, must grant suitable employment, and must reimburse reasonable attorney fees as the court determines. Your medical and wage benefits under the claim itself are a separate track and do not end because the job did. To talk through a Massachusetts workers compensation termination, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is free.
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45
Local Crash Data
Which Court Hears a Car Accident Case in Suffolk County, Massachusetts?

It depends on the amount at stake and on where in the county you were, and Suffolk answers the second half in a way no other Massachusetts county does. Everywhere else, G.L. c. 218, sec. 1 assigns towns to courts by name. In Suffolk it assigns Boston to eight different courts by ward number, and the wards it means are the wards as they existed on February 1, 1882. So a Boston address does not tell you your court, and neither does your neighbourhood, because the lines were drawn before most of the modern neighbourhoods had their current shape. Outside Boston the statute is ordinary: the District Court of Chelsea covers Chelsea and Revere, and Winthrop, which is its own town, is assigned to the East Boston division of the Boston Municipal Court. The amount decides the level. A claim reasonably likely to be worth more than $50,000 belongs in the Superior Court, which under G.L. c. 212, sec. 14 sits for Suffolk at Boston; below that line it belongs in one of the nine District Court or Boston Municipal Court venues; and a claim under $7,000 can go to small claims under G.L. c. 218, sec. 21, which carries a motor vehicle exception most people never hear about. Most claims are resolved with an insurer and never reach any of these buildings. This article is about what happens when yours does not. To talk through a Suffolk County crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is free.
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46
Local Crash Data
Which Court Hears a Car Accident Case in Middlesex County, Massachusetts?

It depends on your town and on what the claim is worth, and Massachusetts settles the first half of that by statute. G.L. c. 218, sec. 1 divides Middlesex County into twelve District Court judicial districts and names the communities in each, which is more divisions than any other county in the Commonwealth. The amount decides the rest. A claim reasonably likely to be worth more than $50,000 belongs in the Superior Court, which under G.L. c. 212, sec. 14 holds its regular Middlesex sittings at Lowell and Cambridge; a claim below that line belongs in one of the twelve District Court divisions; and a claim under $7,000 can go to small claims under G.L. c. 218, sec. 21, which carries a motor vehicle exception most people never hear about. There is one more thing worth knowing before you get in the car, and it is the part no statute will tell you: three of these courts do not sit in the town they are named for. Most claims are resolved with an insurer and never reach any of these buildings. This article is about what happens when yours does not. To talk through a Middlesex County crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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47
Waivers and Releases
Can I Reopen My Claim After Signing a Settlement Release in Massachusetts?

Usually not, and it is worth saying that first rather than last. A release is a contract, and Massachusetts courts enforce it as one. The narrow door that does exist opens on a distinction the Supreme Judicial Court drew in 1986 and it is not the distinction most people expect: a release can be set aside for mutual mistake where the parties were wrong about whether an injury existed at all, and not merely because a known injury turned out to be worse than anyone thought. Getting worse is the ordinary risk a release is written to transfer. Being injured in a way nobody had identified when the paper was signed is a different problem, and Massachusetts treats it differently. If you have signed something and your condition has changed, the first practical step is to get a copy of the exact document, because everything below turns on its words and on what was known when it was signed. To talk through a Massachusetts injury claim, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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48
Local Crash Data
Which Court Hears a Car Accident Case in Bristol County, Massachusetts?

It depends on your town and on the amount at stake, and Massachusetts answers the first half by statute. G.L. c. 218, sec. 1 divides Bristol County into four District Court judicial districts and names the towns in each: the First sits at Taunton, the Second at Fall River, the Third at New Bedford, and the Fourth at Attleboro. Freetown and Westport are the exception worth knowing, because the statute puts them in two districts at once. The amount decides the rest. A claim reasonably likely to be worth more than $50,000 belongs in the Superior Court, which in this county sits at Taunton, New Bedford and Fall River under G.L. c. 212, sec. 14; a claim below that line belongs in one of the four District Court divisions; and a claim under $7,000 can go to small claims under G.L. c. 218, sec. 21, which carries an exception for motor vehicle property damage that most people never hear about. Most claims are resolved with the insurer and never reach any of these buildings. This article is about what happens when yours does not. To talk through a Bristol County crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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49
Fault and Liability
I Lent Someone My Car and They Crashed It. Am I Liable in Massachusetts?

You were not in the car. You were at work, or asleep, or standing in your own kitchen when the phone rang. Three weeks later a Superior Court summons arrives with your name on it, and the number on the ad damnum is larger than your policy limits. That sequence is normal in Massachusetts, it is not a clerical error, and the reason it happens has almost nothing to do with whether you did anything wrong. Massachusetts reaches the registered owner of a car by two separate legal routes that most people collapse into one, and they are graded on completely different things. One asks only whose name is on the registration. The other asks what you knew about the person you handed the keys to. To talk through a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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50
Medical Malpractice
Is There a Massachusetts Case If Survival Was Already Unlikely?

A family calls, describes a cancer that was found late, and then says the sentence that usually ends the conversation: the doctors told us he probably would not have made it anyway. In most states that sentence is the end of it, because a claim requires proving the negligence more likely than not caused the death, and a patient who started with a one in three chance can never prove that. Massachusetts decided otherwise. In Matsuyama v. Birnbaum, 452 Mass. 1 (2008) the Supreme Judicial Court held that the chance itself is something of value, that destroying it is an injury a doctor can be liable for, and that the damages are scaled to the size of the chance destroyed rather than paid in full or refused outright. A patient whose odds were 37.5 percent before the negligence does not recover nothing, and does not recover everything. To talk through a specific situation, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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51
Local Crash Data
Which Massachusetts Towns Have the Most Washington Street Crashes?

Hanover. MassDOT's 2024 crash records show 121 crashes on Washington Street in Hanover, spread across four separately recorded segments, which is more than any other Massachusetts community. Newton follows at 114 and Stoughton at 97, and Stoughton's 97 is the largest figure recorded for a single continuous Washington Street segment anywhere in the state. Across Massachusetts as a whole, 41 Washington Street segments in 28 towns account for 1,293 crashes in 2024, which makes Washington Street the second highest entry on MassDOT's statewide top-road list behind Main Street. The pattern underneath those totals is the part worth reading: 41.5 percent of every Washington Street crash in the state happened in Norfolk County, which accounts for only 10.3 percent of Massachusetts crashes overall, and the same test run on Main Street shows no such skew. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash on any of these streets, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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52
Case Value
Which Medical Bill Number Counts in a Massachusetts Claim?

Here is the situation this article is about, in the shape it usually arrives. The hospital billed forty thousand dollars, the health insurer paid nine, the difference was written off, the patient never owed a cent of it, and an adjuster is now calling the medical damages nine thousand dollars. In Massachusetts that is not the law, and the opposite is not the law either. Under M.G.L. c. 233, sec. 79G itemized medical bills are admissible in evidence, and in Law v. Griffith, 457 Mass. 349 (2010) the Supreme Judicial Court held that a judge may not keep them out just because a third party paid less. The same decision held that the defense may not tell the jury what a particular insurer actually paid, but may call a representative of the provider to testify to the range of payments that provider accepts for those services. So the jury hears the full bill, never hears the payer, and finds fair and reasonable value somewhere in the room between the two figures. To talk through a specific claim, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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53
Property Division
How Is the Marital Home Appraised and Divided in a Massachusetts Divorce?

In most Massachusetts divorces, nobody appraises the house. There is no statute and no Probate and Family Court rule requiring it, and the two mandatory disclosure rules that do force documents across the table, Supplemental Probate and Family Court Rules 401 and 410, ask for tax returns, pay stubs, bank statements, retirement statements and old mortgage applications, and never once ask for an appraisal or for any document about the real estate at all. What the court sees is a number written into each party's financial statement under the penalties of perjury. If the two numbers agree, that is the value of the house, and the case moves on. If they do not agree, one of you has to go out and buy an appraisal, because no rule is going to produce one for you. The house is then divided under M.G.L. c. 208, sec. 34, which does not tell the judge how to value anything; it gives a list of factors to weigh and leaves the rest to discretion. To talk through a specific situation, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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54
Pedestrian Accidents
Where Are Pedestrians Most Often Hit in Massachusetts?

Ten of the Commonwealth's 349 cities and towns account for 40.9 per cent of every pedestrian crash in the state. Boston leads on raw count with 491 over three years, followed by Worcester at 327, Lynn at 268, Cambridge at 220 and Springfield at 214. But raw counts mostly measure how busy a place is, and the more useful question is what share of a community's crashes involve someone on foot. On that measure the ranking rearranges completely: Brookline records 60.11 pedestrian crashes per 1,000 crashes, Salem 51.28, Cambridge 46.08, Chelsea 44.52 and Lynn 44.12, against a statewide figure of 14.76. Boston, which has more pedestrian crashes than any other community by a wide margin, ranks only ninth on that measure. All of these figures come from MassDOT IMPACT Open Crash Data for calendar years 2022, 2023 and 2024, counted across all 349 Massachusetts communities. To discuss a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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55
Probate and Estates
Do You Have to Go Through Probate in Massachusetts?

Often, no, and the answer turns on how each asset was titled rather than on the size of the estate. Property held as joint tenants, or by spouses as tenants by the entirety, passes to the survivor by operation of law. Life insurance, retirement accounts, and any account with a named beneficiary or payable-on-death designation pass to the beneficiary. Assets in a trust are governed by the trust. Only what remains in the sole name of the person who died is the probate estate, and where that consists entirely of personal property worth no more than $25,000 plus one motor vehicle, M.G.L. c. 190B, sec. 3-1201 lets an interested person collect it with a sworn statement filed thirty days after the death, without a full probate. The hard exception is real estate: a house in the decedent's sole name cannot pass by that route and needs a probate proceeding to clear title. To find out which category a specific estate falls into, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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56
Probate and Estates
Can You Contest a Will in Massachusetts?

Yes, and the deadline is more generous than most people are told, but it is also more specific. Under M.G.L. c. 190B, sec. 3-108, a proceeding to contest an informally probated will, and to seek appointment of the person with legal priority if the contest succeeds, may be commenced within the later of twelve months from the informal probate or three years from the date of death. The usual grounds are lack of testamentary capacity, undue influence, improper execution under sec. 2-502, and fraud. The first practical step is usually not litigation at all: it is finding out whether the will has already been informally probated, because that filing is what starts the twelve-month clock and it happens without a hearing that anyone attends. Massachusetts also requires the person filing for informal probate to give seven days' written notice to all heirs and devisees beforehand, so a family member who received a letter about an estate has already been put on notice. To have a specific situation reviewed, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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57
Probate and Estates
What Happens If You Die Without a Will in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts decides for you, and the result is rarely what people picture. The widespread belief that a surviving spouse simply inherits everything is true here only in narrow circumstances. Under M.G.L. c. 190B, sec. 2-102, a spouse takes the entire intestate estate only when there are no descendants and no surviving parent, or when every surviving descendant is a child of both spouses and the survivor has no other children. If either of you has a child from another relationship, the spouse takes the first $100,000 plus half of the balance, and the children take the rest. If there are no children but a parent of the person who died is alive, the spouse takes the first $200,000 plus three quarters of the balance, and that parent takes the remainder. None of this touches property that passes outside the estate, such as jointly held real estate or an account with a named beneficiary. To find out what the default rule would do to a specific family, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Probate and Estates
How Long Does Probate Take in Massachusetts?

An ordinary Massachusetts estate takes about a year, and the reason is one statute most timelines never mention: under M.G.L. c. 190B, sec. 3-803, a creditor of the person who died generally cannot pursue the personal representative unless the action is commenced within one year of the date of death. Until that year runs, the personal representative who distributes everything can be left personally exposed, so careful counsel closes the estate after the first anniversary rather than before it. The front end moves faster than people expect: informal probate needs seven days' written notice to the heirs and devisees before the petition is even filed, and a small estate of personal property worth no more than $25,000 plus one vehicle can be settled thirty days after the death without full probate at all. The outer wall is firm. No probate proceeding may be commenced more than three years after the death. To talk through a specific estate, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Social Security Disability
How Do You Apply for Social Security Disability in Massachusetts?

You apply through the Social Security Administration, not through the Commonwealth, and in Massachusetts that means online at ssa.gov, by phone on 1-800-772-1213, or at one of the 33 SSA field offices in the state. What most people do not know, and what changes how you prepare, is that the office you apply at does not decide whether you are disabled. It checks whether you have enough work credits for SSDI or a low enough income and asset level for SSI, and then it ships your file to Disability Determination Services in Boston or Worcester, a state agency that in 2026 is a division of MassAbility, the agency formerly called the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission. A disability examiner there, working with a staff physician or psychologist, makes the medical decision. That split is why the paperwork you hand the field office matters less than the medical records the examiner is able to gather, and it is why the single most useful thing you can do at the start is name every treating source completely. To talk through a Massachusetts disability claim, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Dealing with Insurers
Do I Have to See the Insurance Company's Doctor After a Massachusetts Car Accident?

It depends on which claim the letter is attached to, and the difference is worth real money. If the examination belongs to a Massachusetts personal injury protection claim, a statute requires you to go: M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34M provides that "The injured person shall submit to physical examinations by physicians selected by the insurer as often as may be reasonably required", and the same paragraph makes "Noncooperation of an injured party" a defense to the insurer in any suit for those benefits. If a liability insurer is asking you to be examined while it evaluates your bodily injury claim and no lawsuit has been filed, no Massachusetts statute compels you to attend, and the pressure is the offer rather than a duty. Once a lawsuit is filed, the defense still cannot simply schedule you, because Mass. R. Civ. P. 35 requires a court order made "only on motion for good cause shown" that specifies "the time, place, manner, conditions, and scope of the examination". Two things almost nobody is told: the examiner does not have to be a medical doctor, and does not have to practice in your treating provider's field. One thing worth using: under M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113J you or your attorney can demand a copy of the report. To talk through a letter you have already received, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day and the first telephone consultation is free.
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Local Crash Data
Which MetroWest Massachusetts Towns Have the Highest Crash Rates?

MetroWest is where a Massachusetts crash is least likely to kill someone. Across 2022, 2023 and 2024 the eighteen communities counted here recorded 32,461 crashes and 45 of them were fatal, a rate of 1.39 per 1,000 against 2.68 for Massachusetts as a whole. That is roughly half the state rate, and the obvious explanation, that these are dense suburbs full of low-speed fender benders, does not survive testing: the 209 Massachusetts communities with three-year crash totals in the same range as these towns run 2.82 per 1,000, which is worse than the state, not better. Something specific to this region is producing crashes people walk away from. One number runs the other way and belongs in the same paragraph rather than buried later: bicycle involvement here is above the state rate, 11.95 per 1,000 against 10.75, and Needham of all places has the ninth highest bicycle crash share of any Massachusetts community with a thousand or more crashes. If you were hurt in a crash anywhere in MetroWest, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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62
Bankruptcy
How Do You File for Bankruptcy in Massachusetts?

You file in federal court, not a Massachusetts state court, and the single decision that shapes the outcome is one most people have never heard of: Massachusetts lets you choose between the state exemption list and the federal one, and you have to pick a side. Consumer cases run under Chapter 7, which sells what is not exempt and wipes out most of the rest, or Chapter 13, which keeps everything and pays a court-approved plan over three or five years. Which one you qualify for turns on a means test measured against the Massachusetts median family income, which for cases filed on or after July 15, 2026 is $88,202 for one person and $112,708 for a household of two. Before any of that, one number decides the exemption choice for most Massachusetts homeowners: the declared homestead exemption under M.G.L. c. 188, sec. 1 is $1,000,000, against a federal homestead of $31,575. To talk through a specific situation, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Local Crash Data
How Dangerous Is Route 20 in Massachusetts?

Route 20 is the longest road in Massachusetts, and it is the first corridor in this series where the state's own crash records show a fatality rate above the statewide average rather than below it. Across 2022 to 2024, the nine communities where MassDOT records a Route 20 segment among their highest-crash roads logged 43 fatal crashes on 14,031 total crashes, a rate of 3.06 per 1,000 against 2.68 for Massachusetts as a whole. The gap is real but modest, and it narrows to 3.06 against 2.74 when those towns are compared only with towns of similar crash volume. What is much larger, and much more consistent, is the exposure mix: those same communities record roughly half the bicycle and pedestrian crash rate of comparable towns. Fewer people on foot, more people dying. That is the signature of a high-speed undivided road running through low-density towns, and it points at two specific Massachusetts statutes. To talk through a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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64
Product Liability
Can I Sue for Food Poisoning in Massachusetts?

Yes, and in Massachusetts the strongest route is a warranty claim rather than a negligence claim, because the Legislature wrote a sentence into the sales statute that treats a restaurant meal as a sale of goods. M.G.L. c. 106, sec. 2-314 makes the promise automatic and requires no proof that anyone was careless, which is why the food cases that fail here usually failed on causation or on the choice of defendant rather than on fault. The proof engine is public: a board of health keeps every inspection report for at least five years and has to notify the state within 24 hours of a suspected outbreak. If you or a family member were made ill by a meal, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Local Crash Data
Which Road Has the Most Crashes in Massachusetts? Main Street

Not an interstate. In the most recent complete year of MassDOT crash records, 2024, the single highest entry on the statewide top-road list is MAIN ST at 2,672 crashes. The highest interstate entry on the same list is Interstate 93 northbound at 444, which makes the Main Street figure 6.02 times larger. Washington Street is second at 1,118 and Pleasant Street third at 633, so the top three entries in Massachusetts are all ordinary downtown streets before a highway appears at all. Seven of the twenty-four entries on that list are Main Street under one spelling or another, and together they account for 4,271 crashes. What this does not mean is that Main Street is the most dangerous road in the state, and the reasons are set out below rather than left out. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash on any of these streets, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Case Value
What Does It Mean to Mitigate Damages in a Massachusetts Injury Case?

Mitigating damages means taking the reasonable steps an ordinary person would take to keep an injury from getting worse or costing more than it has to. In practice that is medical care you actually attend, treatment advice you actually follow, and a return to some kind of work when you are able. Massachusetts does not put this duty in a numbered statute for ordinary injury claims. It is a common-law rule, which is why searching the General Laws for the phrase leads nowhere and why an insurance adjuster can describe it however it suits them. What the General Laws do settle is who has to prove a failure to mitigate, and the answer is not the injured person: M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85 places the burden on "the person who seeks to establish such negligence" and adds that "the plaintiff shall be presumed to have been in the exercise of due care." There are two Massachusetts systems where the legislature did write consequences into statute, no-fault benefits and workers compensation, and in those two the penalties are far harsher than most people are told. To talk through a specific situation, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Premises Liability
Who Is Liable for an Amusement Ride or Trampoline Park Injury in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts licenses and inspects powered amusement rides under M.G.L. c. 140, sec. 205A, and that statute builds a paper trail almost nobody asks for. After an injury requiring medical treatment the ride must close immediately, the owner has 48 hours to notify the state in writing, state inspectors must investigate, and the owner and the operator must each keep a log of maintenance, repairs, inspections and every accident. A trampoline park is a different question, because sec. 205A defines an amusement device as a powered mechanical ride, so a trampoline court or a bounce house usually runs on ordinary premises liability and on the release signed at the door. If you or your child were hurt at a park, a carnival or a trampoline facility, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Local Crash Data
Which Massachusetts Communities Have the Most Crashes on Interstate 290?

Worcester, by a wide margin. In 2024, MassDOT recorded 178 crashes on Worcester's two Interstate 290 segments, 98 westbound and 80 eastbound, and the highway is the city's third and fifth highest-crash road. Marlborough follows at 65, then Auburn and Shrewsbury at 55 each, and Northborough at 44. Those five communities are the only ones in Massachusetts that recorded an I-290 segment among their eight highest-crash roads, and together those segments produced 397 crashes in a single year. The number that most people expect to follow, that this makes I-290 one of the state's more dangerous highways, is not in the data, and the reason is set out below. What the data does show is a concentration in one small town that appears nowhere else on the corridor. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere on the corridor, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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69
Workers Compensation
What Is the Difference Between Workers Comp and Disability in Massachusetts?

The difference is the question each program asks. Massachusetts workers compensation asks how you got hurt, and pays only if the injury or illness arose out of and in the course of your employment. Social Security Disability asks how long you will be unable to work, and pays only if a medical condition has stopped you from doing substantial work for at least twelve months, no matter where or how it happened. Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave, the program most people leave out of the comparison entirely, asks neither of those things: it pays a capped weekly benefit for a limited number of weeks for a serious health condition, work-related or not. A single injury can qualify you for all three, none of them, or one at a time, and the wrong assumption about which one applies is a common reason people never file at all. If you were hurt at work in Massachusetts and are not sure which program you are in, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Premises Liability
Who Is Liable for an Elevator or Escalator Injury in Massachusetts?

Usually two parties at once, and they are liable for different reasons. The building owner has a duty to keep the elevator in a safe condition, and under Banaghan v. Dewey, 340 Mass. 73 (1959), that duty survives even when the owner carefully hires an outside maintenance company. The maintenance company answers separately, to riders it never contracted with, for the negligent performance of whatever its contract actually required. Massachusetts also runs a state elevator inspection system under M.G.L. c. 143, secs. 62 to 71, and it generates a paper trail most people never think to ask for: an annual inspection, a written report of every defect filed with the state and with your city or town, and a mandatory accident report that you have a statutory right to request a copy of. If you were hurt on an elevator or escalator, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Taxes on Settlements
Is a Personal Injury Settlement Taxable in Massachusetts?

Mostly no. If your settlement compensates you for a physical injury, the money is not taxable income, not on your federal return and not on your Massachusetts return, and that is true whether it arrives as a lump sum or as periodic payments and whether it came from a jury or from a signature on a release. The exclusion is federal, it lives in 26 U.S.C. sec. 104(a)(2), and Massachusetts inherits it automatically because M.G.L. c. 62 sec. 2 defines Massachusetts gross income as the federal gross income. What you do have to watch are four specific pieces that can ride along inside a settlement and are taxed: punitive damages, interest, damages for emotional distress that is not attached to a physical injury, and any amount that reimburses medical expenses you already deducted in an earlier year. If you are working through a Massachusetts injury claim, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Local Crash Data
Which Massachusetts South Shore Towns Have the Highest Crash Death Rates?

Duxbury, and it is not close. Across 2022, 2023 and 2024, MassDOT recorded 697 crashes in Duxbury and five of them were fatal, a rate of 7.17 fatal crashes per 1,000, against a Massachusetts figure of 2.68. Hanson is second at 6.41, then Hingham at 5.67, Marshfield at 5.48 and Kingston at 5.14. Every one of those five is at least double the state rate, and every one of them is a small town that records a fraction of the crashes its neighbours do. The city with by far the most crashes on the South Shore, Quincy, has the region's lowest fatality rate at 1.08 per 1,000. That inversion is the whole story of this region, and it is invisible in any figure that reports the South Shore as a single number. If you were hurt in a crash anywhere on the South Shore, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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73
Workers Compensation
Does Workers Comp Cover Your Medical Bills in Massachusetts?

Yes, and in Massachusetts it covers them completely. Under M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 30 the workers compensation insurer must furnish an injured employee "adequate and reasonable health care services, and medicines if needed, together with the expenses necessarily incidental to such services," and it must pay the reasonable and necessary cost of that care. There is no deductible, there is no copayment, and there is no percentage left over for the employee. The statute says so in one flat sentence: "In no instance shall employees be required to make copayments or pay deductibles." A second provision, M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 13(1), closes the gap from the other direction by making the employee not liable at all: "No employee shall be liable for health care services adjudged compensable under this chapter." Between them, those two sentences mean a compensable work injury in Massachusetts should never produce a medical bill addressed to the injured person. Medical coverage also outlasts the weekly checks. Section 30 applies "so long as such services are necessary, notwithstanding the fact that maximum compensation under other sections of this chapter may have been received," which is the language that keeps treatment covered years after wage benefits have run out. This is general information about Massachusetts law rather than advice about any particular claim. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Claims for Children
Does a Child's Injury Settlement Need Court Approval in Massachusetts?

No, not as a matter of law, and the reason that answer sounds wrong is worth understanding. Massachusetts has exactly one statute on the subject, M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 140C1/2, and it opens with the words "The trial court may review and approve". The Supreme Judicial Court has described it as "discretionary court approval". What is true, and what people are reaching for when they say approval is required, is something different and more useful: a settlement a parent signs out of court does not bind the child. Under a rule Massachusetts has followed since 1891, the child can repudiate it and sue again, and because the deadline for a minor is paused until age 18, that second lawsuit can arrive many years later. Court approval is not a legal requirement. It is the thing that makes the release hold. If a child in your family was injured, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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75
Local Crash Data
How Dangerous Is Route 1 in Massachusetts? Crash Data From Attleboro to Salisbury

US Route 1 runs the whole length of eastern Massachusetts, entering from Rhode Island at Attleboro and leaving for New Hampshire at Salisbury, and the twenty-eight cities and towns it passes through recorded 63,396 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 187 fatal crashes, 15,891 crashes involving injury, 669 involving a bicycle and 1,248 involving a pedestrian. That is 15.64 per cent of every crash in the Commonwealth from 8.02 per cent of its communities. Those towns show a fatal rate of 2.95 crashes per 1,000 against a statewide 2.68, which reads as a more lethal corridor, and that reading is wrong. Boston is on the list, Boston is the largest crash community in Massachusetts, and Boston accounts for 27.46 per cent of the corridor's crashes and 34.76 per cent of its deaths. Take Boston out and the remaining twenty-seven towns run 2.65 fatal crashes per 1,000, slightly below the state as a whole. What does not wash out is pedestrian exposure: 19.69 pedestrian crashes per 1,000 with Boston included and 16.46 without, against a statewide 14.76, with Chelsea at 44.52 and Malden at 37.26. The corridor's real story is not that Route 1 kills more people. It is that the road changes character four times across its length, and the segment that looks most dangerous is the safest one in the data. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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76
Deadlines
What Is the Statute of Limitations in Massachusetts? Every Deadline by Claim Type

Massachusetts does not have one statute of limitations. It has dozens, and the one that applies to you depends entirely on what kind of claim you have. The three deadlines that catch most people are three years for personal injury and most other tort claims under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A, six years for ordinary contract claims under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2, and four years for consumer protection claims including Chapter 93A under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 5A. But a claim against a city or town requires a written presentment within two years, a claim against a doctor or hospital is barred outright seven years after the treatment no matter when you discovered the harm, a workers compensation claim runs four years from when you first connected your disability to your job, and a discrimination complaint must reach the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination within 300 days. The table below sets out every common deadline with the statute it comes from, each one read from the text on malegislature.gov. If a deadline passes, the claim is normally gone regardless of how strong it was, so the only safe assumption is that yours is shorter than you think. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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77
Local Crash Data
How Dangerous Is Route 6 in Massachusetts? Crash Data From Seekonk to Provincetown

US Route 6 crosses Massachusetts from the Rhode Island line at Seekonk to the tip of Cape Cod at Provincetown, and the twenty-three cities and towns it passes through recorded 44,530 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 94 fatal crashes, 10,268 crashes involving injury, 433 involving a bicycle and 609 involving a pedestrian. That is 10.99 per cent of every crash in the Commonwealth from twenty-three of its three hundred and forty-nine communities. The corridor is nonetheless less lethal per crash than the state as a whole, at 2.11 fatal crashes per 1,000 against a statewide 2.68, and the reason is the single most useful thing in this data: the crashes are concentrated in New Bedford and Fall River, which between them hold 4.96 per cent of all Massachusetts crashes and have fatal rates less than half the state average, while the deaths are concentrated in the smaller towns either side of them, which run 3.54 fatal crashes per 1,000. The Cape half of the route is a different problem again, producing bicycle crashes at 15.66 per 1,000 against a statewide 10.75, and 23.46 per 1,000 across the lower and outer Cape. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Premises Liability
Who Is Responsible for a Swimming Pool Drowning in Massachusetts?

It depends on whose pool it was and how the person got to it, and the statute almost everyone quotes does not apply to most of the pools people drown in. Massachusetts does have a pool enclosure law, M.G.L. c. 140, sec. 206, and it is specific down to the height of the gate latch. It also reaches only public and semipublic outdoor inground pools, which the section defines as pools at hotels, apartment houses, country clubs, camps, schools and similar places. There is no Massachusetts General Law requiring a fence around a private backyard pool at all; that duty comes from the state building code and is enforced by your local building department. When a child gets into a pool nobody let them into, the case is decided by M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85Q, a five-part test that has nothing to do with whether the pool was tempting. If a pool injured someone in your family, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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79
Traffic Violations
What Is the Penalty for a Hit-and-Run in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts does not have one hit-and-run offence. It has three, and they sit in the same statute at very different weights. Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a), leaving the scene after hitting another vehicle or property is punishable by a fine of not less than $20 nor more than $200, or imprisonment for not less than two weeks nor more than two years, or both. Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a1/2)(1), leaving after knowingly colliding with or causing injury to a person, where nobody dies, is punishable by imprisonment for not less than six months nor more than two years and by a fine of not less than $500 nor more than $1,000, and the word there is "and", not "or". Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a1/2)(2), where the injuries result in death, the range is state prison for not less than two and one-half years nor more than ten years and a fine of not less than $1,000 nor more than $5,000, or a jail or house of correction sentence of not less than one year nor more than two and one-half years with the same fine, and the statute forbids reducing that sentence below one year, suspending it, or allowing probation, parole or furlough until a year has actually been served. Separately from the criminal case, a person injured by a driver who fled is usually not left without a source of payment, because M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113L requires every Massachusetts auto policy to carry uninsured motorist coverage and names "hit-and-run motor vehicles" in the statute itself. Every statute here is quoted from malegislature.gov. This is general information and not legal advice. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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Local Crash Data
How Dangerous Are Western Massachusetts Roads? Berkshire, Franklin and Hampshire County Crash Data

Across the seventy-eight cities and towns of Berkshire, Franklin and Hampshire counties, Massachusetts recorded 19,155 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 82 fatal crashes, 3,896 crashes involving injury, 188 involving a bicycle and 235 involving a pedestrian. That is 4.73 per cent of every crash in the Commonwealth, but 7.54 per cent of every fatal one. Put as a rate, the three western counties produced 4.28 fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes against a statewide figure of 2.68, which is about one and six tenths times the state. And the region is below the state average on everything else: 20.3 per cent of its crashes involved injury against 22.9 per cent statewide, 9.81 per 1,000 involved a bicycle against 10.75, and 12.27 per 1,000 involved a pedestrian against 14.76. Fewer crashes, fewer people hurt as a share of them, fewer cyclists and pedestrians struck, and yet a death rate more than half again the state's. Inside the region the effect concentrates hard by town size: the fifty-nine communities with fewer than 300 crashes over the three years hold 21.5 per cent of the region's crashes and 45.1 per cent of its fatal crashes. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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81
Premises Liability
Can I Sue My Landlord After a Carbon Monoxide or Fire Injury in Massachusetts?

Usually yes, and Massachusetts gives you more than one way in. Most people assume the only question is whether the landlord was careless. That is the hardest of the four routes, not the only one. A tenant who sent written notice by registered or certified mail has a statutory claim under M.G.L. c. 186, sec. 19 that does not depend on proving carelessness at all. The implied warranty of habitability supplies a second route, and in 2009 the Supreme Judicial Court held it reaches a visiting guest, not only the tenant. The state sanitary code makes a missing smoke detector or carbon monoxide alarm a condition that endangers or materially impairs health or safety. And the carbon monoxide statute almost everyone cites is the wrong one. If you were hurt in a Massachusetts rental, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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82
Traffic Violations
What Is the Move Over Law in Massachusetts?

The Massachusetts move over law is M.G.L. c. 89, sec. 7C, and it requires that when you approach a stationary emergency response vehicle, highway maintenance vehicle or recovery vehicle that has its lights flashing, you slow to a speed that is reasonable and safe for the conditions, and, if it is practicable and the road has at least four lanes with at least two running in your direction, you move out of the lane next to that vehicle. If changing lanes is not practicable, the duty does not disappear: you still have to proceed with due caution and reduce your speed. A violation carries a fine of not more than $100. That small fine is the least important part of the statute, because what a move over violation really does is hand the other side a piece of evidence in any injury claim that follows. This article explains what the section covers, the one common roadside situation it does not cover, how it differs from the separate rule about emergency vehicles that are moving toward you, and what it means for a claim if someone was hurt. For a conversation about a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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83
Local Crash Data
Which Massachusetts Communities Have the Most Crashes on Route 9?

Eight Massachusetts communities recorded a segment of Route 9 among their eight highest-crash roads in 2024, and those segments produced 807 crashes in that single year, according to MassDOT crash records. Hadley leads at 157, followed by Wellesley at 135, Westborough at 128, Natick at 122, Shrewsbury at 115, Southborough at 89, Framingham at 54 and Northborough at 7. In seven of those eight towns, Route 9 is not merely on the list. It is the single highest-crash road in the town. And there is a catch buried in the data that matters to anyone trying to look their own crash up: MassDOT wrote the route number into only 283 of those 807 crashes. The other 524 are recorded under a local street name, with no number attached, which is why a search for Route 9 in the state's own crash data returns roughly a third of the road. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere on the corridor, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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84
Dealing with Insurers
What Is a 93A Demand Letter in Massachusetts?

A 93A demand letter is a written demand for relief that Massachusetts law requires a consumer to send before filing a Chapter 93A lawsuit. Under M.G.L. c. 93A, sec. 9(3), the letter has to be mailed or delivered at least thirty days before the action is filed, and it has to identify the claimant and reasonably describe the unfair or deceptive act or practice relied upon and the injury suffered. The recipient then has thirty days to make a written tender of settlement. That is the mechanical answer. The reason the letter matters so much in Massachusetts injury cases is a second statute sitting behind it: M.G.L. c. 93A, sec. 9(1) gives a right of action to any person whose rights are affected by a violation of clause (9) of section 3 of chapter 176D, which is the list of unfair claim settlement practices that insurance companies are forbidden to engage in. Put those two together and Massachusetts is one of the few states where a person injured by someone else can go directly at the other side's insurer over how the claim was handled. If a court finds the violation was willful or knowing, or that relief was refused in bad faith after the demand, sec. 9(3) provides for recovery of up to three but not less than two times the amount, and sec. 9(4) provides for reasonable attorney fees and costs. This article explains what the letter has to contain, what happens in the thirty days after it goes out, and what it cannot do. It is general information about Massachusetts law and not legal advice. To talk through a specific situation, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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85
Boating Accidents
Who Pays After a Boating or Jet Ski Injury in Massachusetts?

Nobody automatically, and that is the first thing to understand about a Massachusetts boat crash. When two cars collide, a no-fault layer called personal injury protection starts paying medical bills within days no matter who caused it. On the water there is no such layer. Boats are governed by M.G.L. c. 90B, a completely separate chapter from the c. 90 motor vehicle law, and chapter 90B never mentions insurance at all. The flip side is just as important and almost nobody mentions it: because the pain and suffering threshold in M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D applies only to motor vehicle cases, a boating claim is not gated by the two thousand dollar medical bill rule or the fracture requirement that blocks so many car cases. A boating injury claim is an ordinary negligence claim against whoever was careless, funded by whatever liability coverage that person happens to carry. If you were hurt on the water in Massachusetts, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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86
Local Crash Data
Where Do Crashes Happen on Storrow Drive and the Massachusetts State Parkways?

Six of the 349 Massachusetts communities recorded a state parkway among their eight highest-crash roads in 2024, and those parkway segments produced 290 crashes in that single year, according to MassDOT crash records. Boston accounts for 179 of the 290. Storrow Drive alone is the city's third highest-crash road at 95 crashes, ahead of both carriageways of the Massachusetts Turnpike. Everett is the more surprising entry: the Revere Beach Parkway occupies four separate places on that city's list, including the top one. What links these roads is not geography and not traffic volume. It is ownership. Storrow Drive, Soldiers Field Road, Morrissey Boulevard, the Revere Beach Parkway, Quincy Shore Drive, Alewife Brook Parkway and Hammond Pond Parkway are not city streets and they are not MassDOT highways. They belong to the Department of Conservation and Recreation, the state parks agency, and that single fact changes the deadlines that apply if you ever want to make a claim about the road itself. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash on any of these roads, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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87
Construction Injuries
Who Pays for a Construction Site Injury in Massachusetts?

Two separate systems can pay for a Massachusetts construction site injury, and in most serious cases both of them do. Workers' compensation pays first, through your employer's insurer, regardless of who caused the accident, and it covers medical treatment and a portion of lost wages but nothing for pain and suffering. Separately, you may have a fault-based claim against someone on the site who was not your employer, such as the general contractor, another subcontractor, the property owner, or the manufacturer of a piece of equipment. That second claim is where compensation for pain and suffering comes from. Under M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 15 you are entitled to pursue it "without election," meaning you do not have to give up workers' compensation to bring it. The reason the two systems exist side by side is that Massachusetts law generally closes off a direct lawsuit against your own employer, and understanding that trade is the key to how construction injury money actually moves in this state.
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88
Local Crash Data
Where Do Crashes Happen on the Massachusetts Turnpike?

Nine of the 349 Massachusetts communities recorded a stretch of Interstate 90 among their highest-crash roads in 2024, and those stretches produced 247 crashes in that single year, according to MassDOT crash records. Almost half of them, 121, were in Boston. Weston came second with 62 across four separate segment entries, then Charlton at 15, Ludlow at 12, Framingham at 10, Palmer at 9, Auburn at 8, and Oxford and Millbury tied at 5. The more revealing finding is what the Turnpike is missing from. MassDOT's statewide list of the highest-crash roads in 2024 runs to 24 entries and reaches down to roads with 209 crashes, and Interstate 90 is not on it anywhere. Yet on the statewide list of roads with the most fatal crashes that year, the Turnpike westbound is tied for second. That combination, absent from the volume list and near the top of the fatal list, is the whole story of this road. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere on the corridor, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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89
Premises Liability
Can I Sue If I Was Hurt in a Massachusetts Park or on Free Land?

Usually not for ordinary negligence, and the reason is one short statute most people have never heard of. M.G.L. c. 21, sec. 17C, called the recreational use statute or the public use statute, says that a landowner who lets the public onto land for recreation and eight other listed purposes, and charges nothing for it, cannot be sued for ordinary carelessness. The injured visitor has to prove the owner was wilful, wanton or reckless instead, which is the standard normally reserved for trespassers, and it is a hard standard to meet. It applies to cities and towns exactly as it applies to private owners, so a public park, a town playground and a state skating rink are all inside it. But the statute has real edges, and most Massachusetts cases are won or lost on two of them: whether a fee was charged for the particular use that the injured person was making of the land, and whether the land was actually open to the general public rather than to an invited group. If you were hurt on land you got onto for free, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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90
Toxic Exposure
Can I Sue My Landlord for My Child's Lead Poisoning in Massachusetts?

Yes, and Massachusetts gives you a claim that is unusually strong at one end and unusually narrow at the other. The strong end is that you do not have to prove the landlord knew anything. The Massachusetts Lead Law makes the owner of a pre-1978 rental liable for a lead-poisoned child under six without any showing of negligence, knowledge, or a prior inspection, and the duty to remove the lead is triggered by a child under six simply living there, not by anyone getting sick. The narrow end is a number almost no family is told: the strict-liability claim itself only opens once the child's blood lead level reaches the level at which the Department of Public Health defines lead poisoning, and the current regulation sets that at ten micrograms per deciliter, while the same regulation treats five as a level of concern. A child can be high enough for the Commonwealth to track and too low for the statute's strict liability. That child is not without a case, but it is a different case. If your child has tested positive for lead in a Massachusetts rental, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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91
Workers Compensation
Does Workers Comp Cover Your Commute in Massachusetts?

Usually not. Massachusetts follows what is called the going and coming rule, which holds that the workers compensation act does not cover employees travelling to work in the morning or home at the end of the day. The rule dates to Chernick's Case, decided by the Supreme Judicial Court in 1934, and it is still the starting point today. But it is a starting point, not a wall. There are recognised situations in which a trip that looks like a commute is covered, and there is a second and often more valuable route that most people miss entirely: if another driver caused the crash, you have an ordinary Massachusetts injury claim against that driver whether or not workers compensation applies. The two questions are separate, and the answer to one does not decide the other. To talk through a crash on the way to or from work, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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92
Local Crash Data
Which Massachusetts Communities Have the Most Crashes on Route 24?

Six Massachusetts towns recorded a segment of Route 24 among their highest-crash roads in 2024, and those segments produced 147 crashes in that single year, according to MassDOT crash records. Randolph leads at 58, followed by West Bridgewater at 23, Raynham at 20, Avon at 18, and Bridgewater and Stoughton tied at 14. Randolph is the striking one: Route 24 northbound and Route 24 southbound are the first and second highest-crash roads in the entire town. But the more useful finding on this corridor is not where the crashes are. It is where the deaths are. Across the eleven communities the highway runs through, the fatality rate per crash varies by a factor of eight, and it runs in the opposite direction to the crash counts: the cities at either end, Fall River and Brockton and Taunton, produce enormous numbers of crashes and comparatively few deaths, while the small towns in the rural middle produce few crashes and a strikingly high share of the fatal ones. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere on the corridor, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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93
Local Crash Data
How Dangerous Are Essex County Roads? Three Years of Massachusetts Crash Data

Across the thirty-four cities and towns of Essex County, Massachusetts recorded 45,213 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 92 fatal crashes, 10,483 crashes involving injury, 436 involving a bicycle and 839 involving a pedestrian. That is 11.16 per cent of every crash in the Commonwealth over those three years, and four Essex cities sit in the statewide top twenty: Lynn is tenth of all 349 communities, Lawrence eleventh, Haverhill fourteenth and Peabody twentieth. Yet by the measure that matters most, Essex is not an unusually deadly county. It produced 2.03 fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes against a statewide figure of 2.68, and only 8.46 per cent of the state's fatal crashes despite carrying 11.16 per cent of its crashes. The number that does stand out is pedestrians. Essex produced 14.03 per cent of every pedestrian crash in Massachusetts, a rate about one and a quarter times the state average, and one city drives much of it: Salem recorded 86 pedestrian crashes out of 1,677 total, a rate of 51.3 per 1,000 crashes against a statewide 14.8. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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94
Negligent Security
Can I Sue a Property Owner in Massachusetts for an Attack by Someone Else?

Usually not, and the reason is not the one most people expect. Massachusetts does not start from the idea that a landlord, a store or a bar is responsible for keeping criminals away from you. It starts from the opposite idea: "As a general rule, a landowner does not owe a duty to take affirmative steps to protect against dangerous or unlawful acts of third persons." A claim exists only when two separate things are true, and both have to be proved. First, the risk of that kind of attack had to be reasonably foreseeable to the owner. Second, and this is the part that decides most modern cases, there had to be some reasonable security measure the owner could have taken that probably would have prevented it. In the Supreme Judicial Court's most recent decision on the subject, a property with a documented history of fights, a shooting and gunfire in the parking lot still produced no liability, because nothing the landlord could have done would have stopped the particular killing. If you were hurt in an attack on someone else's property, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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95
Case Value
How Much Is a Truck Accident Settlement Worth in Massachusetts?

No one can tell you what a Massachusetts truck accident settlement is worth without reading the file, and anyone quoting an average is quoting a number that does not describe your case. What can be said precisely is what determines the figure. A truck case is worth the provable harm, reduced by your share of the fault, capped in practice by the insurance available to pay it, and adjusted by a handful of Massachusetts rules that move real money: an $8,000 personal injury protection layer that pays first, a $2,000 medical expense threshold that has to be crossed before pain and suffering is recoverable at all, a comparative negligence rule that cuts the award by your percentage and bars it entirely above fifty per cent, twelve per cent per annum interest that accrues from the day suit is filed, and liens that come out of the gross rather than the net. The reason truck settlements sit in a different range from car settlements is not sympathy. It is that a for-hire interstate freight carrier must carry at least $750,000 in public liability under 49 CFR 387.9, against a Massachusetts compulsory minimum of $25,000 per person, and that federal safety regulations generate records a passenger-car case does not have. Those records are only kept for six months. Jim Glaser Law can be reached at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day. The first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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96
Local Crash Data
Where Do Crashes Happen on Cape Cod? Three Years of Massachusetts Crash Data

The fifteen towns of Barnstable County recorded 15,493 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 39 fatal crashes, 3,527 crashes involving injury, 261 involving a bicycle and 165 involving a pedestrian. That is 3.8 percent of the 405,245 crashes Massachusetts recorded over those three years, and the Cape's overall injury rate is almost exactly the statewide one. Two things in the data are not ordinary. The Cape produces 6.0 percent of every bicycle crash in the Commonwealth from 3.8 percent of its crashes, and it produces conspicuously fewer pedestrian crashes than the state average rather than more. The other finding is about a single town: Barnstable ranks twenty-first of all 349 Massachusetts communities for total crashes and seventh for fatal ones. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked town by town in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash in any of these towns, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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97
Toxic Exposure
How Do You Prove Asbestos Exposure in a Massachusetts Injury Claim?

You prove it with documents, not with memory. An asbestos claim usually arrives twenty to fifty years after the exposure that caused it, by which time the jobsite is gone, the foreman has died and the company has changed its name twice. What survives is paper, and far more of it survives than most people assume: federal law requires employers to keep asbestos exposure monitoring records for at least thirty years and medical surveillance records for the length of employment plus thirty, and Massachusetts has required advance written notice to the state before any asbestos abatement job for decades, which means many buildings have a filed history of exactly where the asbestos was and when someone disturbed it. The job is connecting a specific person to a specific defendant's asbestos at a specific place and time, then connecting that exposure to the disease. Massachusetts adds one hazard that catches people who wait: a six-year statute of repose that can extinguish a claim against a builder or designer before the illness has even appeared. To talk through a specific work history, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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98
Waivers and Releases
Are Liability Waivers Enforceable in Massachusetts?

Usually, yes. That is the honest answer and it is not the one most people expect. Massachusetts is one of the friendlier states in the country for the business that hands you a clipboard, and the Supreme Judicial Court has said so in as many words: "Massachusetts law favors the enforcement of releases." It does not matter that you did not read it. It does not matter that you had no choice but to sign it if you wanted to take the class, join the club or get on the lift. A parent can even sign away a child's right to sue. What a waiver cannot do is reach a defendant's gross negligence, excuse a violation of a statutory duty, or override the handful of situations where the Legislature has written a rule by hand. That gap is where real Massachusetts cases get won, and it is narrower and more specific than the internet suggests. To talk through a specific situation, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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99
Product Liability
Can I Sue for a Defective Product in Massachusetts?

Yes, and the route is stranger than in almost any other state. Massachusetts never adopted strict product liability. The Supreme Judicial Court declined it outright in 1978 and has left it declined ever since, which means there is no free-standing tort claim here for selling a dangerous product. What Massachusetts has instead is a sales-contract promise, the implied warranty of merchantability in M.G.L. c. 106, sec. 2-314, which the Legislature rebuilt until it does the same work under a different name. That detour matters for a practical reason most people never hear: because the claim is a warranty claim rather than a negligence claim, the comparative negligence statute that trims most Massachusetts injury recoveries does not reduce it at all. To talk through a specific situation, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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100
Local Crash Data
How Dangerous Are Suffolk County Roads? Three Years of Massachusetts Crash Data

Across the four cities and towns of Suffolk County, Massachusetts recorded 23,143 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 78 fatal crashes, 6,051 crashes involving injury, 347 involving a bicycle, and 702 involving a pedestrian. That is 5.7 percent of every crash in the Commonwealth but 11.7 percent of every crash that struck someone on foot. Measured as pedestrian crashes per 1,000 crashes, the county runs at 30.33 against a statewide 14.76, which is 2.05 times the state figure and the highest this series has measured. The obvious explanation is Boston, and the obvious explanation is wrong. Boston holds 75.2 percent of the county's crashes and is first in Massachusetts for pedestrian crashes outright at 491, yet Boston's pedestrian ratio is 28.21 and the other three communities together run 36.79. Chelsea alone runs 44.52, which is fourth among all 189 Massachusetts communities with at least 500 crashes on record. Severity runs the opposite way: the county's fatal ratio of 3.37 per 1,000 is essentially Boston's, and Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop together sit at 2.27, below the statewide 2.68. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere in Boston, Chelsea, Revere or Winthrop, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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101
Motorcycle Accidents
Where Do Most Motorcycle Accidents Happen in Massachusetts?

Most Massachusetts motorcycle crashes happen on ordinary city streets in daylight on dry pavement, not on highways, at night, or in bad weather. MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 carry 5,623 crashes involving a motorcycle, of which 175 were fatal and 4,003 involved an injury. Just over half of them, 52.5 percent, happened at no junction at all, meaning mid-block rather than at an intersection. Another 38.5 percent happened at an intersection of some kind, most often a T-intersection rather than a four-way. Daylight accounted for 72.5 percent and dry pavement for 92.4 percent. Two thirds of them, 65.0 percent, happened where the posted speed limit was 25, 30 or 35 miles an hour. By municipality, Boston recorded the most at 261 over the three years, followed by Springfield at 204 and Worcester at 199, but Springfield recorded the most deaths, 12 against Boston's 8. The number that gives all of this weight is the severity gap: motorcycles were in 1.4 percent of Massachusetts crashes and 16.1 percent of the fatal ones, which works out to 31.1 fatal crashes per 1,000 motorcycle crashes against 2.68 per 1,000 for crashes generally. Every figure here comes from a MassDOT query run on 2026-08-13 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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102
Insurance Coverage
What Are the Minimum Car Insurance Requirements in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts requires every registered vehicle to carry four compulsory coverages, and as of July 1, 2025 the required minimums are $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident for bodily injury to others, $8,000 in personal injury protection, $25,000 per person and $50,000 per accident for bodily injury caused by an uninsured auto, and $30,000 for damage to someone else's property. Those are the current figures under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A and sec. 34O as amended by St. 2024, c. 275. If you have seen 20/40/5 printed somewhere, that was the law until June 30, 2025, and it is now out of date. The more important point, and the one that catches people, is what a minimum policy does not do. Under the Division of Insurance's own description, the compulsory bodily injury coverage pays only when the crash happens in Massachusetts, and it does not cover injuries to the passengers in your own car. Both of those gaps are closed by an optional coverage that most Massachusetts drivers have never had explained to them. If you are dealing with a crash and trying to work out which policy pays for what, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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103
Medical Malpractice
Can My Family Sue a Massachusetts Nursing Home for Neglect?

Yes, and the part most families get wrong is which door to walk through. Four separate bodies of Massachusetts law reach a licensed nursing home, and three of them move faster than a lawsuit while paying the resident's family nothing at all. The state reporting system under M.G.L. c. 111, secs. 72F to 72L puts an investigator in the building within days and can put the Attorney General on the facility, but the penalties it collects go to the Commonwealth. The residents' rights statute, M.G.L. c. 111, sec. 70E, creates real enforceable rights and then routes the private lawsuit straight into the medical malpractice procedure chapter, which means a screening tribunal and a bond rather than a quick consumer claim. A negligence or wrongful death case is where compensation actually lives, and it carries a procedural step most people have never heard of. The fourth track, the one almost nobody writes about, is the Attorney General's own consumer protection regulation written specifically for long term care facilities. To talk through a specific situation, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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104
Local Crash Data
How Dangerous Are Plymouth County Roads? Three Years of Massachusetts Crash Data

Across the twenty-seven cities and towns of Plymouth County, Massachusetts recorded 32,099 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 117 fatal crashes, 8,574 crashes involving injury, 240 involving a bicycle, and 337 involving a pedestrian. That is 7.9 percent of every crash in the Commonwealth but 10.8 percent of every fatal one. Measured as fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes, the county runs at 3.64 against a statewide 2.68, which is 36 percent higher and ties Hampden County for the worst figure this series has measured. What makes Plymouth County different from Hampden is where the severity sits. Brockton is the seventh busiest crash location in Massachusetts and fifth in the state for fatal crashes outright, and yet Brockton's fatal ratio is 2.71, below its own county and essentially level with the state. Remove Brockton and the other twenty-six communities run at 3.92. The dangerous driving in this county is happening south and east of the city, in the coastal towns and the cranberry country, on two-lane roads that carry far fewer crashes and kill far more often. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere on the South Shore, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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105
Local Crash Data
How Dangerous Are Hampden County Roads? Three Years of Massachusetts Crash Data

Across the twenty-three cities and towns of Hampden County, Massachusetts recorded 34,623 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 126 fatal crashes, 9,091 crashes involving injury, 321 involving a bicycle, and 471 involving a pedestrian. That is 8.5 percent of every crash in the Commonwealth and 11.6 percent of every fatal one. Measured as fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes, the county comes out at 3.64 against a statewide 2.68, which is 36 percent higher, and unlike every other county this series has examined, the excess is not coming from the rural edges. Springfield alone runs at 3.96 fatal crashes per 1,000, which is a higher ratio than Boston's 3.73, and Chicopee runs at 4.20. Springfield is second in Massachusetts for fatal crashes and Chicopee is fourth, on a fraction of the crash volume of the cities they are ranked against. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere in the county, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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106
Evidence and Discovery
Is Massachusetts a One-Party or Two-Party Consent State for Recording?

Massachusetts is neither, and the question is built on a premise the statute does not share. The Massachusetts wiretap act, M.G.L. c. 272, section 99, does not ask how many people consented to a recording. It asks whether the recording was made secretly. Under section 99(B)(4), an unlawful interception is made when a person acts "to secretly hear, secretly record, or aid another to secretly hear or secretly record the contents of any wire or oral communication through the use of any intercepting device." The Supreme Judicial Court has held that a recording is secret when the person being recorded lacks actual knowledge of it. So the practical rule in Massachusetts is short: you may record a conversation you are part of, as long as everyone in it knows the recording is happening. Nobody has to say yes. Everybody has to know. Recording secretly is a crime carrying a fine of up to $10,000 and up to five years in state prison, and it also exposes the recorder to a civil suit by the person recorded. If a recording matters to your Massachusetts injury claim, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS before you make it; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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107
Family Claims
Can I Sue for the Trauma of Watching Someone I Love Get Hurt in Massachusetts?

Sometimes, and Massachusetts is stricter about it than most people expect. The claim is called negligent infliction of emotional distress, and since Dziokonski v. Babineau, 375 Mass. 555 (1978) it has not required that you were hit, touched, or even in danger yourself. What it does require is a genuine injury you can corroborate with something more than grief, and, if you are claiming as a bystander to someone else's accident, three limits that decide most of these cases before anyone argues about damages: you have to be closely related to the person who was hurt, you have to have witnessed the accident or come upon the scene soon after, and you have to have been there rather than hearing about it. A stranger who stops and performs CPR has no claim in Massachusetts. A mother who was telephoned seven hours later had none either. A mother who reached the scene and saw her daughter lying in the road did. To talk through a specific situation, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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108
Family Claims
Can My Family Bring Their Own Claim After I Am Injured in Massachusetts?

Sometimes, and when they can, it is their claim rather than yours. Massachusetts calls it loss of consortium, and it compensates a family member for what the injury did to the relationship itself, not for medical bills or lost wages. The answer depends on which relationship you are asking about. A husband or wife has had this claim since Diaz v. Eli Lilly & Co., 364 Mass. 153 (1973). A dependent minor child of an injured parent has had one since Ferriter v. Daniel O'Connell's Sons, Inc., 381 Mass. 507 (1980). Parents of an injured child have one only because the Legislature wrote it into M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85X after the Supreme Judicial Court declined to create it. Three rules then decide whether the claim is worth anything: it is legally independent, so the injured person's own share of fault does not reduce it; it is not immune, because an adverse ruling in the injured person's case can bind the family member; and if the injury happened at work, M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 24 has already taken the claim against the employer away. To talk through a specific situation, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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109
Local Crash Data
How Dangerous Are Norfolk County Roads? Three Years of Massachusetts Crash Data

Across the twenty-eight cities and towns of Norfolk County, Massachusetts recorded 41,894 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 114 fatal crashes, 9,636 crashes involving injury, 363 involving a bicycle, and 573 involving a pedestrian. That is 10.3 percent of every crash in the Commonwealth. Measured by fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes, the county comes out at 2.72 against a statewide 2.68, which is to say it is average, and that average is the least useful number in this article. Divide the county along the boundaries that actually matter, the seven District Court catchments that decide where a case is heard, and the ratio runs from 1.88 in the Quincy district to 4.18 in the Wrentham district. The same county, the same three years, the same dataset, and a difference of more than a factor of two depending on which side of it you were driving on. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere in the county, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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110
Case Value
What Is a Massachusetts Spinal Cord Injury Case Worth?

There is no average, and any figure quoted to you before the facts are known is guesswork dressed up as information. What a Massachusetts spinal cord injury case is worth is set by four things working together: the categories of damages Massachusetts law allows you to recover, the total insurance and assets that can actually be reached, the share of fault assigned to you under M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85, and whether the defendant is one of the few kinds of defendant whose liability Massachusetts caps by statute. In catastrophic injury cases the binding constraint is very often not the severity of the injury at all. It is the amount of coverage sitting on the other side. This article explains each of those four inputs, quotes the statutory figures that are actually written into Massachusetts law, and is candid about what cannot be predicted. If you want the mechanics of how the claim itself proceeds, that is covered separately in the Massachusetts spinal cord injury claim guide. To talk through a specific injury, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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111
Drunk Driving
Who Can Be Held Responsible After a Drunk Driving Crash in Massachusetts?

Usually more than one party, and the rules are different for each. The claim against the drunk driver is an ordinary negligence claim, and the criminal case running alongside it under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24 does not pay you anything. A licensed bar or restaurant can be liable in its own right, because M.G.L. c. 138, sec. 69 provides that "No alcoholic beverage shall be sold or delivered on any premises licensed under this chapter to an intoxicated person", and a violation of a criminal statute is evidence of negligence. A private host can be liable too, but only inside a narrow rule: Massachusetts requires that the host either served the alcohol or controlled the supply. And the claim against a bar or a host is filed under M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 60J, which sends it to the Superior Court and requires a sworn affidavit within ninety days. To talk through who is on the hook in a specific crash, the Jim Glaser Law line at (617) JIM-WINS is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is offered without charge.
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112
Brain Injury
How Does a Traumatic Brain Injury Claim Work in Massachusetts?

A traumatic brain injury claim in Massachusetts runs on the same legal machinery as any other injury claim, with three differences that decide most of these cases. The first is proof: a brain injury often leaves no broken bone and no abnormal scan, so the evidence has to be built out of records, testing and testimony rather than an image. The second is the motor vehicle threshold in M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D, which lets a plaintiff recover for pain and suffering after a crash only if reasonable and necessary medical expenses exceed two thousand dollars or the injury fits one of five listed exceptions, none of which a concussion automatically satisfies. The third is capacity: when the injured person cannot make decisions, Massachusetts law changes both who signs and, under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 7, when the clock runs. The ordinary deadline is three years from the date the cause of action accrues. If you are trying to work out where a head injury stands, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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113
Local Crash Data
How Dangerous Are Worcester County Roads? Three Years of Massachusetts Crash Data

Across the sixty cities and towns of Worcester County, Massachusetts recorded 59,452 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 158 fatal crashes, 12,143 crashes involving injury, 325 involving a bicycle, and 625 involving a pedestrian. That is 14.7 percent of every crash in the Commonwealth. By the measure that matters most, the county sits almost exactly on the state average: 2.66 fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes against a statewide 2.68. That average hides the county's real pattern completely. Strip out the city of Worcester and the remaining fifty-nine communities run at 2.94 fatal crashes per 1,000, while the city itself runs at 1.86. The danger in Worcester County is not concentrated where the traffic is. It is spread across the rural two-lane roads in the north and the south of the county, and the gap between the safest and the deadliest parts of one county is larger than the gap between most counties. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere in the county, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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Local Crash Data
Which Massachusetts Communities Have the Most Crashes on Route 128?

Sixteen Massachusetts cities and towns recorded a segment of Route 128 among their highest-crash roads in 2024, and those segments produced 461 crashes in that single year, according to MassDOT crash records. Lexington leads at 68, followed by Burlington at 64, Milton at 44, Gloucester at 36, and Canton at 33. The road does not appear in the data under the name most drivers use for it. Its legal name is the Yankee Division Highway, and along its length it carries three different route numbers, which is why a crash on Route 128 in Gloucester, a crash on Route 128 in Lexington, and a crash on Route 128 in Milton are recorded as three different highways. Across three years, those sixteen communities recorded 31,568 crashes, 69 of them fatal. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere on the corridor, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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115
Evidence and Discovery
Can the Insurance Company See My Social Media in a Massachusetts Injury Claim?

Yes, and the reach extends well past the public profile. Anything posted publicly can be read by an adjuster or an investigator on the first day, with no subpoena and no court order, because nothing is being compelled. Once a lawsuit is filed the reach grows: Massachusetts Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1) opens discovery to "any matter, not privileged, which is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action", and Rule 34(a)(1)(A) reaches "any designated documents or electronically stored information" in your possession, custody, or control, expressly including photographs and images. The request usually arrives at your door rather than at the platform's, because 18 U.S.C. 2702(a)(1) bars a provider from divulging the contents of a communication and none of the statute's exceptions is a civil subpoena. The single response that reliably makes a claim worse is deleting. If an insurer has started asking about your accounts, Jim Glaser Law can talk it through at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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116
Spinal Cord Injury
How Do Spinal Cord Injury Claims Work in Massachusetts?

A Massachusetts spinal cord injury claim works like any other negligence claim in its structure and unlike almost any other in its stakes. You must prove that someone else's carelessness caused the injury, you generally have three years from the date of injury to file suit under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A, and your recovery is reduced by your own share of fault and barred entirely if that share is greater than the combined fault of everyone you are suing, under M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85. What makes these cases different is everything downstream of liability. The damages are not a finite pile of past medical bills; they are a lifetime of them. The medical evidence has to establish not only what happened but what the next forty years look like. And the money that pays for that lifetime is claimed against by hospitals, health insurers, MassHealth, and workers compensation insurers, each with its own statutory hook into the recovery. To talk through a spinal cord injury anywhere in Massachusetts, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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117
Dealing with Insurers
Should You Let the At-Fault Driver Pay Out of Pocket After a Massachusetts Car Accident?

In most cases the answer is no, and in some cases the choice is not yours to make, because Massachusetts law imposes reporting duties that a private handshake does not switch off. If anyone was injured or killed, or if the damage to any one vehicle or other property exceeds $1,000, M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 26 requires every operator involved to file a written report with the registrar within five days and to send a copy to the police department with jurisdiction over the road where the crash happened. That duty attaches to the crash, not to whether a claim is filed. Separately, the medical benefits that pay your first bills in Massachusetts do not come from the other driver at all. Personal injury protection is first-party coverage under your own policy, payable regardless of fault, so agreeing to keep the other driver's insurer out of it does nothing to your right to PIP and everything to your ability to prove what happened later. If you are weighing an offer like this, Jim Glaser Law can talk it through at (617) JIM-WINS. The line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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118
Liens and Reimbursement
Who Gets Paid Out of My Massachusetts Injury Settlement?

The settlement figure and the amount that reaches you are two different numbers, and in Massachusetts most of the difference is set by statute rather than by negotiation. Three separate regimes can reach into an injury recovery, and each one has its own trigger. A hospital, a health maintenance organization, or a hospital, medical or dental service corporation gets a lien under M.G.L. c. 111, sec. 70A, but that lien reaches only "the net amount payable to such injured person", applies only to an accident "not covered by chapter 152", ranks behind the attorney's lien, and under M.G.L. c. 111, sec. 70B takes effect only if written notice was mailed by certified mail, return receipt requested, before the settlement. MassHealth is stronger. M.G.L. c. 118E, sec. 22 makes repayment a duty, subrogates the Commonwealth to "a claimant's entire cause of action", obliges the claimant or the attorney to give written notice within 10 calendar days of starting recovery activity, and provides that a settlement which does not say what portion is for medical expenses is presumed to pay those expenses first. Meanwhile the layer that pays the first bills is close to lien proof, because M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A bars the entity that paid those expenses from holding any lien against personal injury protection benefits, "Notwithstanding the provisions of section seventy A of chapter one hundred and eleven of the General Laws". If the injury happened at work, none of that applies and M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 15 governs instead. This is general information about Massachusetts law and not legal advice. To talk through a specific recovery with a Massachusetts attorney, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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119
Local Crash Data
How Dangerous Are Middlesex County Roads? Three Years of Massachusetts Crash Data

Across the fifty-four cities and towns of Middlesex County, Massachusetts recorded 83,203 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 168 fatal crashes, 17,733 crashes involving injury, 1,459 involving a bicycle, and 1,397 involving a pedestrian. That is 20.5 percent of every crash in the Commonwealth, which is roughly what you would expect from the state's largest county by number of municipalities. One number is not what you would expect. Middlesex County accounts for 33.5 percent of every bicycle crash in Massachusetts, a share half again as large as its share of crashes overall, and it contains four of the state's ten highest bicycle-crash communities. Cambridge alone recorded 384 bicycle crashes, more than Boston's 273, and ranks first among all 349 Massachusetts communities. At the same time the county is, by the measure that matters most, safer than the state as a whole: 2.02 fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes against a statewide 2.68. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere in the county, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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120
Government Claims
Can You Sue the State or a City in Massachusetts?

Yes, in most negligence cases, but only if you follow a claims procedure that has no equivalent in an ordinary injury case, and the first deadline in it is shorter than the deadline to file suit. The Massachusetts Tort Claims Act, M.G.L. c. 258, makes public employers liable for injuries caused by the negligence of their employees acting within the scope of employment, in the same words the statute uses, "in the same manner and to the same extent as a private individual under like circumstances." But M.G.L. c. 258, sec. 4 bars any civil action unless the claimant first presented the claim in writing to the right executive officer within two years after the cause of action arose, and M.G.L. c. 258, sec. 2 caps damages against a public employer at $100,000 with no punitive damages and no interest before judgment. A separate and much shorter clock, thirty days, applies when the injury came from a defect in a road or sidewalk. Miss the presentment window and the claim is over regardless of how strong it was. If a city, a town, a school district, a transit authority, or the Commonwealth may have had a hand in your injury, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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121
Local Crash Data
Is Interstate 495 the Deadliest Highway in Massachusetts?

By the measure that matters most, yes. In 2024, the most recent complete year in the MassDOT crash records, the northbound Interstate 495 segment recorded 9 fatal crashes, the highest fatal count of any road entry in Massachusetts and three times the next-worst highway. Northbound I-93, the westbound Massachusetts Turnpike, and southbound Route 3 tied for second at 3 apiece. Southbound I-495 added 2 more, bringing the corridor to 11 fatal crashes in a single year. What makes that finding striking is what it does not match: on total crashes, I-495 northbound recorded 232 in 2024, seventeenth statewide and roughly half of I-93 northbound's 444. So the Massachusetts highway with the most collisions and the Massachusetts highway that kills the most people are not the same road. Twelve communities across four counties carry an I-495 segment among their highest-crash roads, together accounting for 280 crashes on the highway in 2024. Every figure here comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked town by town at the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash on I-495 or anywhere else in Massachusetts, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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122
Scooter Law
Are Electric Scooters Legal in Massachusetts?

Yes, electric scooters are legal to ride in Massachusetts, but the statute that governs them, M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 1E, imposes conditions that almost no rider in the Commonwealth actually meets. You need a valid driver's license or learner's permit. You may not exceed 20 miles per hour. You must wear a helmet regardless of your age. You may not carry a passenger. The scooter must be equipped with working stop and turn signals. And you may not ride at all after sunset or before sunrise. Riding legally is possible; riding legally on a stock consumer scooter, at night, without a license, is not. The fines are small, capped at $25 for a first violation, but the fines are not the real exposure. The real exposure is that a violation of sec. 1E can be raised as evidence of negligence in a civil claim, and unlike the bicycle helmet law and the child restraint law, the motorized scooter statute contains no provision protecting a rider from having that used against them. This article walks through every requirement in the statute, the sidewalk question the statute does not answer, and what happens to an injury claim when a scooter rider is hit by a car.
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123
Local Crash Data
Which Massachusetts Communities Have the Most Crashes on Interstate 93?

Boston does, by a wide margin, and it is not close. In 2024, the most recent complete year in the MassDOT crash records, the southbound Interstate 93 segment through Boston recorded 219 crashes and the northbound segment recorded 198, a combined 417. Those two segments are the number one and number two highest-crash roads in the entire city, ahead of Storrow Drive at 95 and both directions of the Massachusetts Turnpike. Statewide, the northbound I-93 segment recorded 444 crashes in 2024, the fourth-highest count of any road segment in the Commonwealth, and the southbound segment recorded 359, the eighth-highest. Fourteen Massachusetts communities have an I-93 segment among their highest-crash roads, and across those fourteen town records the highway accounts for 887 crashes in a single year. In two of them, Stoneham and Methuen, I-93 is the worst road in town, outranking every local street. Every number in this piece comes from MassDOT crash records and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash on I-93 or anywhere else in Massachusetts, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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124
Truck Accidents
What Makes a Massachusetts Truck Accident Claim Different?

A collision with a commercial truck in Massachusetts is not simply a larger car accident. It runs on a second rulebook. The Registry of Motor Vehicles wrote the federal motor carrier rules into Massachusetts law at 540 CMR 14.03, which incorporates them "in both intrastate and interstate commerce", so they reach a truck that never leaves the Commonwealth. That rulebook changes three things an ordinary car case does not have. The insurance floor is a different order of magnitude: Massachusetts compulsory bodily injury coverage is "not less than $25,000" per person under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A as amended for policies issued or renewed on or after July 1, 2025, while 49 C.F.R. 387.9 sets $750,000 as the minimum for an interstate for-hire carrier hauling ordinary freight in a vehicle rated 10,001 pounds or more. The carrier is already required to keep the records that often decide the case, listed in 540 CMR 14.04(3). And the retention clock on the most important of those records is six months under 49 C.F.R. 395.8(k)(1), not the three years you have to file suit under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A. This is general information about Massachusetts law and not legal advice. To talk through a truck collision with a Massachusetts attorney, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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125
Local Crash Data
How Dangerous Are Bristol County Roads? Three Years of Massachusetts Crash Data

Across the twenty cities and towns of Bristol County, Massachusetts recorded 49,507 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 107 fatal crashes, 11,329 crashes involving injury, 349 involving a bicycle, and 601 involving a pedestrian. That is 12.2 percent of every crash in the Commonwealth over those three years, and it comes overwhelmingly from two cities: New Bedford recorded 11,070 crashes and Fall River 9,045, placing them fourth and fifth among all 349 Massachusetts communities. New Bedford sits 39 crashes behind Springfield for third place in the entire state. Yet the county is not, by the measure that matters most, an unusually deadly place to drive. Bristol County produced 2.16 fatal crashes per 1,000 crashes against a statewide figure of 2.68, and the towns with the worst ratios are not the cities at all. Dighton recorded 175 crashes and 3 of them were fatal, a rate of 17.14 per 1,000, roughly fourteen times Fall River's. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash anywhere in the county, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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126
Insurance Coverage
What Happens If You Are in a Massachusetts Car Accident With No Insurance and It Was Not Your Fault?

If you were driving without insurance in Massachusetts and someone else caused the crash, you lose your no-fault benefits but you do not lose your injury claim. Personal Injury Protection, the first $8,000 of medical bills and lost wages under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A, comes from the policy covering the car you were in, so an uninsured car means no PIP. What survives is the right to pursue the at-fault driver for your injuries, because Massachusetts negligence law asks who caused the crash, not who was insured. Two things then work against you and one works for you. Against you: driving uninsured is its own offense under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34J, carrying a fine of "not less than five hundred nor more than five thousand dollars", possible imprisonment, and a 60-day license suspension, and you will pay your own medical bills while the claim runs. For you: because the at-fault driver's tort exemption under sec. 34M applies only "to the extent that the injured party is... entitled to recover" PIP, the medical expenses PIP would normally have absorbed stay on the table against that driver. If this is your situation, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the line is answered 24 hours a day, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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127
Insurance Coverage
Who Pays After an Uber or Lyft Crash in Massachusetts?

After an Uber or Lyft crash in Massachusetts, which insurance policy pays turns on what the driver's app was doing at the instant of impact. The dollar figures are not in the rideshare chapter most people cite. M.G.L. c. 159A1/2, sec. 5 requires "adequate insurance, as required by this chapter and section 228 of chapter 175", and it is M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 228 that sets the numbers: a driver logged on but not yet dispatched carries "at least $50,000 of coverage per individual for bodily injury, $100,000 of total coverage for bodily injury, $30,000 of coverage for property damage", while a driver on a pre-arranged ride carries "at least $1,000,000 in per occurrence, per vehicle coverage for death, bodily injury and property damage". A pre-arranged ride starts the moment the driver accepts the request, not at pickup. Section 228 also does something no other Massachusetts auto statute does: subsection (h) lets a personal auto insurer exclude personal injury protection, uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage during the trip, and says those exclusions apply "notwithstanding any requirement of said section 34A of said chapter 90 and section 113L". To talk through a rideshare crash with a Massachusetts attorney, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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128
Motorcycle Accidents
Is Lane Splitting Legal in Massachusetts?

No. Lane splitting is illegal in Massachusetts. The controlling statute is M.G.L. c. 89, sec. 4A, which says that operators of motorcycles "shall not ride abreast of more than one other motorcycle, shall ride single file when passing, and shall not pass any other motor vehicle within the same lane, except another motorcycle." That last clause is the whole answer. A rider may pass another motorcycle inside a shared lane; a rider may not pass a car, a truck, a van, or a bus inside a lane that car, truck, van, or bus is occupying. The same section separately requires that every driver keep the vehicle "entirely within a single lane," which independently rules out riding the painted line between two lanes of traffic. Massachusetts has never enacted an exception for slow traffic, for stopped traffic, or for filtering to the front at a red light, so the answer does not change because the cars were not moving. A violation is punishable by a forfeiture of up to one hundred dollars under M.G.L. c. 89, sec. 5, but the fine is rarely the expensive part. The expensive part is what an insurance company does with the citation after a crash. To talk through a motorcycle crash with a Massachusetts attorney, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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129
Local Crash Data
Where Do Crashes Happen in the Merrimack Valley? Three Years of Massachusetts Crash Data

Across the twenty-four Merrimack Valley and Greater Lowell communities, Massachusetts recorded 40,542 crashes from 2022 through 2024, including 89 fatal crashes, 8,893 crashes involving injury, 312 involving a bicycle, and 554 involving a pedestrian. That is ten percent of all crashes in the Commonwealth over those three years, concentrated in a region holding a considerably smaller share of the state's road mileage. The volume is where you would expect: Lowell alone recorded 7,781 crashes, the sixth-highest total of any of the 349 Massachusetts communities in the data. The lethality is not. Chelmsford, with barely a quarter of Lowell's crash count, recorded more fatal crashes than Lowell did. That inversion is the most useful thing in this dataset, and it holds across the region: the cities produce the collisions, and the highway towns produce the deaths. Every figure below comes from MassDOT crash records for 2022 through 2024 and can be checked against the town pages in the Massachusetts crash report. To talk through a crash in any of these communities, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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130
Pedestrian Accidents
Pedestrian Accident Rights in Massachusetts

A pedestrian struck by a car in Massachusetts can collect no-fault benefits without owning a car, a policy, or any share of the blame. The no-fault statute puts every pedestrian on the striking vehicle's coverage. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A writes "any pedestrian struck by the insured's or obligor's motor vehicle" into the personal injury protection provisions of the driver's policy, so medical bills and lost wages are paid up to at least $8,000 "without regard to negligence or gross negligence or fault of any kind". If the vehicle that struck you carried no PIP, section 34A moves the same benefits onto your own auto policy or a household member's. If no policy reaches you at all, M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34N directs insurers to maintain an assigned claims plan, although that plan is open only to a person "resident in the commonwealth" and shuts out the uninsured owner of a vehicle and that owner's household. Fault governs everything above the no-fault layer, and it matters less than most people assume. The crosswalk duty in M.G.L. c. 89, sec. 11 applies only "When traffic control signals are not in place or not in operation", and M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 18A provides that a violation of a local pedestrian rule "shall not, in any civil proceeding, constitute negligence or be admissible as evidence of negligence". To talk through a pedestrian crash with a Massachusetts attorney, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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131
Motorcycle Accidents
Massachusetts Motorcycle Accidents and the Injury Threshold

A Massachusetts motorcycle claim is not a car claim with a different vehicle on the police report. Almost everything that limits what a car occupant can collect runs through personal injury protection, and a Massachusetts motorcycle policy does not provide personal injury protection to the person on the motorcycle. That single absence moves two things in your favor. It lifts the two thousand dollar medical-bill requirement that M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D otherwise puts in front of a claim for pain and suffering, which is what the Supreme Judicial Court decided in Murphy v. Bohn, 377 Mass. 544 (1979). And it removes the tort exemption in M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34M that normally shields the at-fault driver from the first layer of your medical bills, because that exemption runs only to the extent personal injury protection benefits are payable to you. The same absence takes something away: no PIP means no first-layer medical coverage and no PIP wage benefit while the claim is pending, so your health plan is the payer from the first dollar. The advantage is also narrower than it sounds. The Appeals Court held in Prouty v. Brown, 22 Mass. App. Ct. 992 (1986), that Murphy turns on having contributed to the Massachusetts no-fault system rather than on being a motorcyclist, so a rider whose bike is insured outside Massachusetts can find the threshold applies after all. To talk through a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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132
Car Accidents
Minor Car Accident in Massachusetts: Do I Need a Lawyer?

Usually, no. A Massachusetts crash that leaves a scuffed bumper and a stiff neck for a week is one that most people settle on their own, and a lawyer who tells you otherwise is selling something. What decides the question is not the size of the dent. It is whether your particular facts run into one of the places where Massachusetts law quietly closes a door. Under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34M the at-fault driver is exempt from tort liability to the extent personal injury protection benefits are payable, so the first layer of your medical bills is not something you can collect twice. Under M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D you cannot recover anything for pain and suffering unless the reasonable and necessary expenses in the categories that statute lists come to more than two thousand dollars, or the injury caused death, loss of a body member, permanent and serious disfigurement, a listed loss of sight or hearing, or a fracture. The clocks are short and they are not the same clock: five days to report the crash to the Registrar under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 26, thirty days to appeal a surcharge under M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113P, two years to present a PIP claim under sec. 34M, and three years to file suit under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A. A minor accident becomes a lawyer problem when it turns out not to be minor, or when one of those doors is about to close. To talk through a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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133
Traffic Violations
What Is the Massachusetts Hands-Free Driving Law?

The Massachusetts hands-free law is M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 13B, and it says two separate things. No driver may hold a mobile electronic device, and no driver may use one unless it is operating in hands-free mode. Holding the phone is itself the violation, so a driver who is stopped at a red light with the phone in hand is in violation even if the screen is dark and no call is in progress. The one screen a driver may look at is a navigation display, and only when the device is "mounted on or affixed to a vehicle's windshield, dashboard or center console in a manner that does not impede the operation of the motor vehicle." Fines run one hundred dollars for a first offense, two hundred fifty for a second, and five hundred for a third or subsequent offense, with a driver behavior program required after a second offense. First and second offenses are not surchargeable on a motor vehicle insurance policy; a third or subsequent offense is. Drivers under 18 are covered by a stricter statute, M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 8M, which bans any use at all and adds license suspensions. To talk through a crash involving a distracted driver, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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134
Premises Liability
Can You Sue for a Slip and Fall on Ice or Snow in Massachusetts?

Yes. In Massachusetts a property owner owes every lawful visitor the same duty of reasonable care for snow and ice that it owes for any other hazard on the property, and an injured person can bring a claim when that duty is breached. This has only been true since 2010, when the Supreme Judicial Court decided Papadopoulos v. Target Corp., 457 Mass. 368, and abolished the old rule that shielded owners from liability for so-called natural accumulations. Two things make these cases different from an ordinary slip and fall, and both catch people off guard. First, M.G.L. c. 84, sec. 21 applies a 30-day written notice requirement to snow and ice claims against private property owners, though sec. 18 also says that missing the notice is not a defense unless the defendant proves it was actually prejudiced. Second, if the fall happened on property owned by a city or town, the recovery is capped by statute and the notice rule is enforced strictly. To talk through a specific fall, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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135
Dog Bites
Will a Dog Be Put Down for Biting Someone in Massachusetts?

Not automatically, and in most cases not at all. A single bite does not trigger euthanasia under Massachusetts law. What it triggers is a process. First comes a rabies quarantine, which is a ten-day strict confinement required by state regulation for any domestic animal that bites or scratches a person or another animal, regardless of whether the animal is vaccinated. Separately, a complaint can be brought to a municipal hearing authority under M.G.L. c. 140, sec. 157, which holds a public hearing and decides whether the dog is a "nuisance dog," a "dangerous dog," or neither. If the dog is deemed dangerous, the hearing authority must order at least one of a list of remedies, and euthanasia is the last and most severe item on that list rather than the default. The owner has 10 days to petition the district court, which reviews the matter fresh. Massachusetts also forbids deeming a dog dangerous based on breed, and protects a dog that reacted proportionately to defend itself, its owner, or its household. To talk through a Massachusetts dog bite, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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136
Dealing with Insurers
How to Deal With an Insurance Adjuster in Massachusetts

After a Massachusetts car accident you are dealing with two insurance companies at once, and the law treats them completely differently. Your own insurer is on the other side of a contract you bought, and that contract requires prompt notice and cooperation with the investigation of your own claim, an obligation reinforced for PIP benefits by M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34M. The other driver's insurer is a stranger to you. There is no contract, no duty to cooperate, and the adjuster assigned to that file is a claims professional whose employer pays what the file supports and no more. What that adjuster may and may not do is measured against the unfair claim settlement practices listed in M.G.L. c. 176D, sec. 3(9), which an injured claimant can reach through M.G.L. c. 93A. Most of the self-inflicted damage in these claims comes from treating the two relationships as if they were one. To talk through a specific claim, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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137
Premises Liability
Who Is Liable for a Slip and Fall in Massachusetts?

In Massachusetts, a property owner is legally responsible for a fall when the owner failed to use reasonable care to keep the property in a reasonably safe condition, and most of these cases turn on notice: whether the owner knew about the hazard, or should have found it, and had a reasonable chance to fix it or warn about it. Since Mounsey v. Ellard, 363 Mass. 693 (1973), one duty of reasonable care is owed to every lawful visitor, so the old licensee and invitee labels no longer decide the case. Snow and ice are judged by that same ordinary standard after Papadopoulos v. Target Corp., 457 Mass. 368 (2010), which abolished the old natural versus unnatural accumulation rule. Two short deadlines catch people off guard. A snow or ice claim against a private property owner carries a written 30 day notice requirement under M.G.L. c. 84, sec. 21, and a claim against a city or town over a defective way carries a 30 day notice under sec. 18 plus a low statutory damages cap. To talk through a specific fall, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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138
Bicycle Law
What Are the Bicycle Laws in Massachusetts?

In Massachusetts, a person on a bicycle has the right to use nearly every public road, is bound by the same traffic laws as a driver, and gets specific legal protections that most cyclists and drivers do not know exist. The core rules come from M.G.L. c. 85, sec. 11B, which governs how cyclists operate, and M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 14, which sets the duties drivers owe to cyclists. A few points matter most. An adult is not required to wear a helmet; only riders 16 and under are, and even then a missing helmet cannot be used to reduce an injured cyclist's recovery. Drivers must pass at a safe distance of not less than 4 feet. Sidewalk riding is allowed outside business districts unless a local rule says otherwise. When a cyclist is hurt, fault decides everything, and Massachusetts still lets a partly-at-fault cyclist recover. To talk through a specific crash, call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS; the first telephone consultation is free.
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139
Legal Fees
How Much Do Personal Injury Lawyers Charge in Massachusetts?

Most Massachusetts personal injury lawyers charge a contingency fee, customarily starting around one third (33 and 1/3 percent) of what they recover for you, with no attorney fee at all if there is no recovery, though the client may remain responsible for case costs and expenses regardless of the outcome. Massachusetts does not set a general statutory percentage cap in ordinary injury cases. Instead, Mass. R. Prof. C. 1.5 forbids a clearly excessive fee and requires the agreement to be in writing and signed by you, stating the percentage that applies at settlement, at trial, and on appeal, listing the litigation expenses to be deducted, and saying whether those expenses come out before or after the fee is calculated. That last detail moves real money. Medical malpractice cases follow a sliding statutory scale under M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 60I. Ask for the written fee agreement before you sign anything. You can reach Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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140
Traffic Violations
When Does Speeding Become a Crime in Massachusetts?

Ordinary speeding in Massachusetts is not a crime. It is a civil motor vehicle infraction, because M.G.L. c. 90C, sec. 1 defines that term as an automobile law violation "for which the maximum penalty does not provide for imprisonment," and a plain speeding violation under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 17 carries only a fine. That means no criminal record, no jury trial, and a hearing before a clerk-magistrate rather than a criminal trial. Speeding crosses into criminal territory only when the driving also satisfies a different statute: reckless operation, negligent operation so that the lives or safety of the public might be endangered, racing or operating upon a bet or wager, operating to make a speed record, or causing a death. Those charges live in M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 24(2)(a) and sec. 24G, and they carry possible jail time. If a speeding driver injured you, you can reach Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS.
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Car Accidents
What Are the Booster Seat Laws in Massachusetts?

In Massachusetts, a child must ride in a child passenger restraint (a car seat or a booster seat) until the child turns 8 or measures more than 57 inches tall, whichever happens first. That is the entire legal trigger under M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 7AA: age or height, not both. 57 inches is 4 feet 9 inches, so a tall 6 year old is out from under the restraint requirement while a small 7 year old is not. The restraint also has to be used "according to the manufacturer's instructions," which is what makes the seat's own height and weight limits legally binding. After a child is out of a restraint, a seat belt is required until age 13. The fine for getting this wrong is no more than $25, it does not surcharge your auto insurance, and a violation cannot be used as evidence of contributory negligence in a civil case. You can reach Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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Fault and Liability
How Is Fault Determined in a Massachusetts Car Accident?

Fault in a Massachusetts car accident is decided on two separate tracks that people constantly confuse. The first is an insurance determination: your own insurer applies the state Standards of Fault in 211 CMR 74 and decides whether you were more than 50 percent at fault, which can trigger a surcharge you can appeal to the Board of Appeal within 30 days. The second is legal fault in an injury claim or lawsuit, decided under the modified comparative negligence statute, M.G.L. c. 231 sec. 85, where you can still recover as long as your share of fault is not greater than the other side's (the 51 percent bar). These two decisions are made by different people, under different rules, and one does not control the other. Evidence like the police report, photos, dashcam footage, witness statements, and vehicle event-data recorder readings shapes both, but none of it is automatically the final word.
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143
Medical Malpractice
What Is the Statute of Limitations for Medical Malpractice in Massachusetts?

In Massachusetts, a medical malpractice lawsuit generally must be filed within three years after the cause of action accrues, under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 4. Because of the discovery rule, that three-year clock often does not start on the day of the negligent care; it starts when the patient knew, or reasonably should have known, that they were harmed and that the harm was connected to medical treatment. A separate outer deadline, the statute of repose, bars almost all claims filed more than seven years after the act or omission, no matter when the injury was discovered. The one exception to the seven-year cap is a claim based on a foreign object left inside the body. Children have their own timeline: a child injured before age six generally has until their ninth birthday to sue, subject to the same seven-year outer limit. Miss the applicable deadline and the claim is almost always barred permanently, regardless of how strong it is.
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144
Workers Compensation
How Much Does a Workers Comp Lawyer Cost in Massachusetts?

In Massachusetts, workers' compensation attorney fees are set by statute, not by whatever a lawyer decides to charge, under M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 13A. Here is the part most injured workers do not know: in the typical contested case that the worker wins, the fee is paid by the insurance company on top of your benefits, not taken out of your weekly check. The statute fixes a dollar amount at each stage of a dispute. As of the October 1, 2025 adjustment, that is roughly $1,375 when the insurer agrees to pay before a conference and about $1,965 when an administrative judge orders the insurer to pay at conference, each plus necessary expenses, with a higher fixed fee at a full evidentiary hearing. On a lump-sum settlement, the fee is capped at 15 percent of the settlement when liability has not yet been established and 20 percent once it has. For most injured workers this adds up to real legal representation with no money out of pocket up front. You can reach Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS, and the first telephone consultation is free.
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145
Settlement Timeline
How Long Does a Massachusetts Car Accident Settlement Take?

Most Massachusetts car accident settlements resolve somewhere between a few months and two years, though the honest answer is that there is no fixed timeline and every estimate is general, not a promise. The single biggest driver of the timeline is medical recovery: a claim generally cannot be fairly valued until you reach maximum medical improvement, because settling before you know the full scope of your injuries risks giving up compensation for treatment you have not yet received. Beyond that, the length of your case depends on how quickly liability is established, how the insurer's investigation unfolds, whether your injuries clear the state's serious injury threshold, whether the available insurance limits are enough to cover your damages, and whether the case has to move into litigation because a fair offer never comes.
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146
Wrongful Death
Who Can File a Wrongful Death Claim After a Fatal Car Accident in Massachusetts?

When a person is killed in a car accident caused by someone else's negligence, Massachusetts law gives their family a path to financial accountability through the wrongful death statute. The action is brought by the executor or administrator of the deceased's estate, not individually by each surviving family member, and it can recover a specific list of damages defined by M.G.L. c. 229, sec. 2: the present value of the financial support, services, and companionship the decedent would have provided over a normal life expectancy, plus funeral and burial expenses, plus conscious pain and suffering endured before death under a parallel survival theory. Gross negligence opens the door to punitive damages as well. The family has three years from the date of death to bring the claim under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 4. This article walks through each element in detail.
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147
Case Value
How Much Is My Massachusetts Car Accident Case Worth?

Every car accident case in Massachusetts is different, and no attorney can hand you a dollar figure before reviewing your medical records, wage documentation, and the facts of the crash. That said, the answer is not completely unknowable. The value of your claim is the sum of your compensable losses, adjusted downward if you share some of the fault, and bounded by available insurance limits. Understanding the categories of damages, the statutes that define them, and the factors that move a number up or down will help you evaluate any settlement offer you receive and have a realistic conversation with your attorney.
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148
Insurance Coverage
What Is PIP Insurance in Massachusetts and What Does It Cover?

Massachusetts Personal Injury Protection (PIP) is a no-fault benefit built into every auto insurance policy in the state. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34M requires every motor vehicle liability policy issued in the commonwealth to provide it, and M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 34A sets out what it pays: reasonable expenses for the medical categories that section lists, incurred within two years from the date of the accident, plus lost wages, "without regard to negligence or gross negligence or fault of any kind, to the amount or limit of at least eight thousand dollars on account of injury to or death of any one person". PIP pays as bills come in rather than at the end of the case, so it provides relief while your personal injury claim is still being evaluated. One limit catches people out: if you also carry health insurance, section 34A caps what PIP pays toward the medical expenses your plan covers at two thousand dollars, automatically and without any election on your part, and your health plan carries the rest.
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149
Insurance Coverage
What Happens If the Other Driver Has No Insurance or Not Enough Insurance in Massachusetts?

If the driver who hit you has no insurance or not enough to cover your injuries, your own auto policy steps in through uninsured motorist (UM) and underinsured motorist (UIM) coverage. Massachusetts law requires every registered private passenger vehicle to carry UM coverage under M.G.L. c. 175, sec. 113L, and the Massachusetts Standard Automobile Policy makes that protection automatic under Part 3. UIM coverage (Part 12 of the Standard Policy) is optional but widely carried and fills the gap when the at-fault driver has some insurance, just not enough. This article explains how both coverages work, what limits apply, how they interact with your PIP benefits, and what you must do to protect your claim.
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150
Car Accidents
Does Not Wearing a Seatbelt Hurt My Massachusetts Car Accident Claim?

Not wearing a seatbelt does not bar a Massachusetts injury claim, and every time the question has reached a Massachusetts appellate court the injured person has won. The usual explanation for why is wrong, though, and the difference matters to your case. M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 13A requires belts and sets a twenty-five dollar fine, and it contains no sentence keeping non-use away from a civil jury. The shield most people have in mind sits in a different statute, M.G.L. c. 90, sec. 7AA, and it reaches child restraints and safety belts for passengers under 13. For an adult, the so-called seat belt defense is an open question in Massachusetts, and the Supreme Judicial Court has said so directly. Defendants lose the argument on causation rather than on a rule: they fail to prove that a belt would have prevented or reduced the injuries. That causation requirement, not a statutory ban, is what actually protects your recovery.
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151
Car Accidents
Do I Have to Report a Car Accident in Massachusetts, and How Long Do I Have?

Yes. Massachusetts law imposes several overlapping reporting duties after a car accident, depending on how serious the crash was. The most important deadlines are (1) a written operator report to the Registrar of Motor Vehicles within five days when anyone was injured, killed, or property damage exceeds one thousand dollars, and (2) an immediate duty to stop at the scene, exchange information, and involve police when the situation requires it. Missing these obligations can carry criminal or license consequences, and it can also weaken any personal-injury claim you later bring. This article explains what you must do, when, and why it matters to your case.
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152
Dealing with Insurers
Do I Have to Give a Recorded Statement to the Insurance Company in Massachusetts?

No. After a Massachusetts car accident or personal injury, you are generally not legally required to give a recorded statement to the other driver's insurance company, and doing so almost always hurts your claim. Your own insurer is a different matter: most Massachusetts auto policies contain a cooperation clause that does obligate you to cooperate with your own insurer's investigation, which may include providing a statement. Before you speak with any insurance adjuster, recorded or unrecorded, call an attorney.
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153
Dog Bites
Who Is Liable for a Dog Bite in Massachusetts?

In Massachusetts, a dog owner is strictly liable for injuries their dog causes. You do not need to prove the owner knew the dog was dangerous, and you do not need to show the dog had bitten anyone before. If a dog bites or attacks you, the owner is responsible for your medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering under M.G.L. c. 140, sec. 155. The only exceptions involve trespassers and people who were tormenting or abusing the dog at the time of the attack.
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154
Car Accidents
What Is the Serious Injury Threshold to Sue After a Car Accident in Massachusetts?

Massachusetts is a no-fault car insurance state. That means your own Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage pays your initial medical bills and a portion of lost wages regardless of who caused the crash. To step outside the no-fault system and sue the at-fault driver for full pain-and-suffering damages, your injuries must meet a statutory "serious injury" threshold defined in M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 6D. If your injuries cross that threshold, you can file a tort claim against the responsible driver. If they do not, your recovery is generally limited to PIP benefits.
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Fault and Liability
What Happens to My Injury Claim If I Was Partly at Fault in Massachusetts?

In Massachusetts, you can still recover compensation if you were partly at fault for an accident, as long as your share of fault is 50 percent or less. The amount you collect is reduced by your percentage of fault. If you are found 51 percent or more at fault, you recover nothing. This rule is codified in M.G.L. c. 231, sec. 85, and it applies to car accidents, slip-and-falls, motorcycle crashes, and most other negligence-based injury claims in the state.
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156
Deadlines
What Is the Statute of Limitations for a Personal Injury Claim in Massachusetts?

In Massachusetts, most personal injury claims must be filed in court within three years of the date of injury under M.G.L. c. 260, sec. 2A. If you miss this deadline, the court will almost certainly dismiss your case and you permanently lose the right to recover compensation, no matter how strong your claim is. Call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS immediately if you are approaching the three-year window or are unsure whether your deadline has passed.
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157
Workers Compensation
How Long Does Workers' Comp Last in Massachusetts?

In Massachusetts, workers' compensation wage-replacement benefits generally last as long as you are unable to work due to a work-related injury, subject to statutory caps that vary by the severity of your disability. Total incapacity benefits (60 percent of your average weekly wage, tax-free) can continue for up to three years before the insurer has the right to modify or stop payments under M.G.L. c. 152, sec. 34. After that period, the matter moves to the Department of Industrial Accidents for a hearing or a lump-sum settlement. Call Jim Glaser Law at (617) JIM-WINS for a free case review.
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These articles constitute general legal information, not legal advice, and do not create an attorney-client relationship. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Attorney advertising under Mass. R. Prof. C. 7.1 to 7.5. Responsible attorney: Jim Glaser, admitted in MA only, of counsel to Keches Law.