Professional women’s soccer is coming (back)[1] to Boston. As part of the National Women’s Soccer League’s big-time expansion, Boston Legacy FC will play its inaugural season at Gillette Stadium before moving to White Stadium, a stadium that sits in Franklin Park and is currently used and operated by Boston Public Schools. This only became reality in April, when a Suffolk County Superior Court judge denied community members relief in their suit alleging that the city’s joint venture with Boston Unity Soccer Partners (BUSP) to renovate the stadium violated state law. Chief among opponents’ concerns is that BPS students and their ability to access quality sporting facilities will continue to be de-prioritized. BUSP denies this, and their website provides details about the anticipated future of White Stadium under the partnership.
Because Massachusetts has a host of laws dedicated to preserving public parks,[2] the plaintiffs in this lawsuit had a decent chance of trying to enforce those laws against the city for making a deal with BUSP to allow private use on what’s used largely by the public. Despite its current state of disrepair, it is beloved by Boston residents, who often use it for exercise and recreation outside the park’s prescribed hours, according to testimony in the trial. The renovation project is also one of the central topics of the upcoming mayoral race between Mayor Wu and Josh Kraft.
The superior court decision, issued in April, is a juicy development, even for Boston, and especially if you’re paying attention to the massive upswing in public attention to professional women’s sports. Denver, another city taking part in the NWSL expansion with their new franchise Summit FC, has citizens whose concerns parallel those of the White Stadium renovation’s opponents. The franchise is partnering with a nearby school district to build an approximately $25 million facility, to be used by the school district after the Summit move into their permanent digs in Denver proper.
Because much ink has been spilled on the complex topics of public–private partnerships and neighborhood self–determination, and because unless and until the plaintiffs appeal the judge’s ruling, this dispute is decided, I won’t be delving into the nitty-gritty history and potential pitfalls of the decision. Also, I’m definitely too biased and probably ill-qualified to give a reasoned analysis as to why the greenlight for the stadium is a good thing. Instead, I’m going to read through the judge’s order and explain some of its relevant legal concepts the way I taught them to myself last year. So please enjoy the scholastic musings of a law student who eleven months ago would not have been able to tell you what “arraignment” means.
Laches
I had a professor who was obsessed with this and I still don’t know why. If you know what the statute of limitations is, laches is like her cool older cousin who lives in Paris and only shows up to one-third of family events. Laches is a defense as opposed to an affirmative claim. Say you get sued for something, but you can show the court that the guy suing you could easily have sued you for the same thing last year, but he only waited until now because he figured he’d make more money off of you by waiting. You’d be asserting laches, and the court would likely take your side and throw out the suit against you.
Courts are notoriously slow, so they are kind of obsessed with promoting efficiency – or what they call judicial economy – which means that parties have to be super diligent about gathering all their evidence and filing their complaints as timely as possible. Laches is not the same as statute of limitations, because instead of simply showing that the plaintiff missed a fixed deadline, you have to explain why the specific circumstances surrounding the suit made it especially unfair for them to sue you this late.
As an “equitable” remedy – more on that below – it’s not all that common, so its relevance here was unique. The judge explained that laches barred the plaintiffs from invoking their rights under a state taxpayer protection law as late in the game as March 2025 because they well knew about the city’s plan in at least February 2024, and the city and the team executed a binding contract in December 2024. If you’re the city being sued in these circumstances, you would definitely be telling the court how unfair it is that you’re getting sued after you poured a bunch of money into the thing, and way after the people complaining already knew about your plans. The superior court judge agreed.
Statutory Interpretation
If you’re an English major, this will be your favorite part of law school. Obviously, courts don’t write statutory laws, legislatures do. But very often, parties are fighting each other in court because one guy is saying, “you broke the law,” and the other guy responds, “that law doesn’t apply to me.” Here, the plaintiffs were telling the city, “you broke the law,” and the city responded, “that law doesn’t apply to this stadium.”
Although courts don’t write statutes, it’s their job to interpret and apply them so they can meaningfully resolve parties’ fights. There are a few general guidelines that most courts often invoke for statutory interpretation issues. One of my favorites is “the rule of lenity,” which advises courts that when the meaning of a term or phrase in the law is unclear, the court must apply a meaning that is most forgiving to criminal defendants. Another is a little more controversial and says that courts can look at external sources like historical records to determine what the legislature meant when they wrote a law.
The judge in this case wasn’t tasked with interpreting statutory language. Instead, he had to decide whether the language of a state constitutional provision, Article 97, protected the Stadium from private acquisition and use. Nevertheless, he implicitly engaged in something like statutory interpretation when he laid out some refreshingly straightforward logic:
The Commonwealth “publishes an interactive mapping tool available to the public called MassMapper. MassMapper has a data layer that shows open space that is protected by Article 97. MassMapper indicates that the Stadium Parcel is not protected under Article 97.”
Of course, other, more compelling testimony drove the judge’s analysis that the law didn’t apply to the White Stadium partnership. But the addition of reasoning that makes perfect sense is always welcome in legal writing.
Equitable relief
I might lose the reader here, but if you’re a nerd about rules like me, it’s kind of fun. This kind of language is somewhat antiquated, but it often shows up in caselaw and textbooks: “equitable” remedies or relief vs. “legal” remedies or relief. When you’re an aggrieved party, what you’re asking the court to do for you will depend on your circumstances. You might want a hundred thousand dollars from a drunk driver whose bad decisions caused you permanent injury and trauma. That would be awarded to you in “monetary damages,” which is a remedy “at law.” Maybe you’re in court because a recent industrial development next to your house has tragically wreaked havoc on the raptor population you’ve always gotten to enjoy from your backyard. You don’t want money; you want the company to stop killing the birds. So in court, you’re asking for an “injunction,” which is a remedy “at equity.”
Equitable remedies are based in fairness, as opposed to legal remedies, which derive from measurable financial loss.[3]That’s why laches is an “equitable” defense – the court will only let it kick in if you can show some real injustice has been done to you. The only reason the distinction matters to anyone (if it even does) is that back in the day, you had to go to a specific court – a law court or equity court – only one of which had the actual authority to give you whatever remedy you wanted. Now things are easier, and you can usually walk into a court of general civil jurisdiction and ask for any remedy under the sun.[4]
The Massachusetts Constitution
This is only included because I feel like bragging about my home state. Our second president, John Adams, proudly drafted the state constitution of Massachusetts. It’s not exactly the oldest constitution in existence, but it’s definitely the most robust of the state constitutions, having served as the model for the US Constitution.[5] It’s also, of course, more “breathing” than its federal counterpart – having been amended 121 times compared to the US Constitution’s 27 times.
Although I’m admittedly pumped for Boston’s new franchise, I’m disappointed that more can’t be done about community members’ adamant disapproval. I hope their concerns don’t materialize, and that BPS students do not, in the judge’s words, continue to be “short-changed by the willful neglect that has affected White Stadium.” A notice of appeal was filed in this case, so it may not be over yet. Trial court orders like the one in this case are publicly available through state court websites.
[1] Their initial NWSL team, the Boston Breakers, folded in early 2018.
[2] See, e.g., MASS. CONST. art. 97.
[3] If you’re a law student or otherwise have access to a case database, read the Massachusetts Appeals Court case Glavin v. Eckman (2008) for an interesting examination of remedies. It was one of my favorite cases we studied during 1L. If you can’t access the case, just google “justice served for Mass. guy whose neighbors cut down his beloved, ancient trees without his permission.” Hopefully, it at least somewhat renews your faith in our justice system.
[4]“There is one form of action–the civil action.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 2 (eliminating distinction between suits at law and suits at equity).
[5] LEONARD W. LEVY, SEASONED JUDGMENTS: THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION, RIGHTS, AND HISTORY, 308-09 (1995).
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