Lavin v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

This case, before us on appeal from a district court judge’s allowance of defendant’s motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict after trial by jury of six in the Worcester Central District Court, raises the threshold issue of whether the case should have been tried to the jury of six at all. Pursuant to our duty to consider legal questions necessarily attendant to those appealed, Bushnell v. Bushnell, 393 Mass 462 (1984), we determine that it should not have been tried to the jury of six in the Worcester Central District Court, we vacate all judgments and order the case restored to the…