Full Opinion

NOTICE: All slip opinions and orders are subject to formal revision and are superseded by the advance sheets and bound volumes of the Official Reports. If you find a typographical error or other formal error, please notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Judicial Court, John Adams Courthouse, 1 Pemberton Square, Suite 2500, Boston, MA, 02108-1750; (617) 557- 1030; SJCReporter@sjc.state.ma.us SJC-13981 RYAN TARASUIK vs. 162 WASHINGTON LLC & others.1 October 20, 2026. Supreme Judicial Court, Superintendence of inferior courts. The petitioner, Ryan Tarasuik, appeals from the judgment of a single justice of this court denying his petition for extraordinary relief pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3. We affirm. Tarasuik is a litigant in the Northeast Division of the Housing Court Department. In his petition to the single justice, he challenged the validity of a judgment of civil contempt that entered against him in the Housing Court, as well as the efforts of a Housing Court judge to enforce that judgment. The single justice denied Tarasuik's petition, concluding that it did not present "the type of exceptional matter that requires the court's extraordinary intervention." Commonwealth v. Fontanez, 482 Mass. 22, 25 (2019). Tarasuik moved for reconsideration, and his motion was denied. Tarasuik now appeals from the judgment of the single justice.2 1 Rock and Sons Property Management LLC, and Joseph Rock. The Northeast Division of the Housing Court Department was also named as a respondent; we treat it as a nominal party. See S.J.C. Rule 2:22, 422 Mass. 1302 (1996). 2 Tarasuik has filed a memorandum and appendix pursuant to S.J.C. Rule 2:21, as amended, 434 Mass. 1301 (2001), but rule 2:21 does not apply here because the civil contempt judgment from which Tarasuik appeals is not an interlocutory order but an appealable final judgment. See Gaines v. Attorney Gen., 495 Mass. 1016, 1018 (2025). Although Tarasuik's appeal is not 2 Because Tarasuik failed to demonstrate the absence of adequate alternative relief, he was not entitled to relief pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3, and we discern no error of law or abuse of discretion in the decision of the single justice to deny Tarasuik's petition. See Fontanez, 482 Mass. at 24-25. Specifically, Tarasuik did not establish why he could not have challenged the validity of the civil contempt judgment in the ordinary course of appeal, that is, by appealing directly from the civil contempt judgment. See Gaines v. Attorney Gen., 495 Mass. 1016, 1018 (2025), quoting Strahan v. Superior Court Dep't of the Trial Court, 452 Mass. 1017, 1018 (2008) ("judgment of civil contempt is an appealable final judgment"). As Tarasuik has not demonstrated the absence of adequate alternative relief, the judgment of the single justice is affirmed. Judgment affirmed. The case was submitted on the papers filed, accompanied by a memorandum of law. Ryan Tarasuik, pro se. limited by the requirements of rule 2:21, nevertheless, for the reasons described herein, he was not entitled to relief pursuant to G. L. c. 211, § 3.