A Suffolk Superior Court Business Litigation Session judge has ruled that MIIA Property & Casualty Group Inc. must indemnify the Town of Braintree for $6.05 million of a $14.9 million settlement arising from the wrongful conviction and 36-year imprisonment of Frederick Weichel. The court also rejected Braintree’s claim that MIIA’s refusal to pay violated Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 93A.
In an October 2, 2026, decision, Superior Court Justice Peter B. Krupp granted summary judgment to the Town on its breach-of-contract claim and to MIIA on the unfair or deceptive practices claim. The dispute concerned law enforcement liability policies issued by MIIA during the final years of Weichel’s imprisonment.
A Wrongful Conviction and a $14.9 Million Settlement
Weichel was convicted in 1981 of the 1980 murder of Robert LaMonica in Braintree. Before his trial, Braintree police had received information identifying another potential suspect: Rocco Balliro, who was serving life sentences for the 1963 murders of Toby Wagner and her young son, Mark, during a shootout with police in Roxbury. Balliro pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in 1965, after the Supreme Judicial Court reversed his original convictions.
Balliro had unlawfully absconded during a prison furlough in 1980. Braintree Police Detective John Leahy showed a composite sketch of the murder suspect to ten correctional officers at a correctional facility in Bridgewater, all of whom believed the sketch depicted Balliro. Leahy documented their identifications in a report delivered to Braintree Police Capt. Theodore Buker.
The report was subsequently placed in departmental records. There is no evidence that it was disclosed to prosecutors before Weichel’s trial, and it was not provided to his defense attorneys until many years later.
Public records requests made by Weichel’s attorneys in 2010 and 2013 ultimately led to the report’s production. His conviction was overturned in 2017, and he was released after approximately 36 years in prison.
Following his release, Weichel pursued separate legal actions against the Commonwealth and the Town of Braintree.
In a wrongful conviction compensation lawsuit against the Commonwealth under G.L. c. 258D, a Suffolk Superior Court jury found Weichel actually innocent and awarded him $33 million in damages. However, the court reduced the award to $1 million because, by statute, the Commonwealth’s liability was limited to that amount.
Separately, Weichel filed two federal civil rights lawsuits against Braintree and certain police officers in 2020 and 2022, alleging constitutional violations, malicious prosecution and failures to disclose exculpatory evidence. The $1 million statutory limit applicable to his claim against the Commonwealth did not apply to these federal lawsuits.
With defense counsel warning of potentially substantial damages, Braintree agreed to settle the federal lawsuits for $14.9 million in September 2024.
MIIA had funded Braintree’s defense while reserving its right to dispute indemnification. It offered no more than $1 million toward the settlement, rejecting the Town’s proposed allocation based on each insurer’s time on the risk.
The Basis for a Settlement Determines Indemnification
MIIA argued that Braintree had to establish through undisputed facts that bodily injury or a covered personal injury offense had occurred during MIIA’s policy periods. It maintained that the original wrongful conviction and imprisonment arose before MIIA began covering the Town on July 1, 2002.
Applying Rass Corp. v. Travelers Cos. Inc., the judge explained that when the underlying litigation settles, the indemnification inquiry examines the basis for the settlement and how the settling parties assessed the claims at that time. The Town still had to demonstrate that claims forming the basis of its settlement came within MIIA’s coverage, but the inquiry was not limited to facts established as undisputed.
Why Law Enforcement Coverage Applied
Under Coverage A of MIIA’s law enforcement liability policies, the judge characterized Weichel’s wrongful imprisonment as a continuing occurrence arising from law enforcement activities. The policy covered bodily injury, sickness and disease, but not mental anguish alone.
The court identified evidence considered in connection with settlement of physical injuries and conditions during the 2002–2017 period, including infections, inmate assaults, an untreated wound and an untreated skin cancer. It concluded that the settlement included claims for bodily injury within the covered years.
Coverage B addressed personal injury caused by offenses during the policy period. Weichel alleged that Braintree repeatedly failed to produce exculpatory records in response to requests extending into MIIA’s coverage years. Defense counsel had identified deficiencies in Braintree’s records systems and assessed the risk that a jury would credit Weichel’s account. The judge concluded that these allegations formed part of the basis for settlement.
The judge expressly did not decide whether each failure to respond to a records request constituted a separate injury for insurance purposes. He also found that an allegation concerning the manner in which records were produced in 2010 had not been shown to form a basis for settlement.
MIIA failed to establish that the policies’ known-injury or willful-violation exclusions barred law enforcement coverage. The court separately found no coverage under MIIA’s general liability policies because of their law enforcement exclusion.
Time on the Risk Produces a $6.05 Million Share
The settlement encompassed several forms of alleged harm, making it impracticable to assign amounts to particular injuries or policy periods. Applying Boston Gas Co. v. Century Indemnity Co., the court used a time-on-the-risk allocation rather than a year-by-year factual division.
MIIA’s 40.62% share of the relevant period equaled $6,052,380 of the $14.9 million settlement. The court found that MIIA breached its indemnification obligation by failing to pay that share.
Chapter 93A Claim Fails Despite Coverage Ruling
MIIA argued that its status as a municipal self-insurance group under Chapter 40M placed it outside the unfair claim settlement requirements of Chapter 176D. Judge Krupp distinguished Chapter 93A, which applies more broadly to conduct in trade or commerce, from insurance-specific regulation. He nevertheless assumed without deciding that MIIA could face Chapter 93A liability for bad-faith settlement practices as a general proposition.
On the merits, the Town’s unfair claim practice claim failed. The judge found that MIIA’s interpretation of the governing coverage law, although mistaken, was a plausible, reasoned legal position and, therefore, that MIIA had not acted deceptively. Accordingly, the court granted summary judgment for MIIA on the Chapter 93A count.
The decision turns on the policy provisions, the claims underlying the settlement and the parties’ assessment of those claims when they settled. It does not establish that a wrongful conviction, by itself, triggers coverage under every policy issued throughout a prison term.
Owen Gallagher
Insurance Coverage Legal Expert/Co-Founder & Publisher of Agency Checklists
Interested in connecting with me? Call me directly at 617-598-3801.
