Family supermarket feud brought to US high court

The family feud continues.

Just three months after the state's highest court seemed to drive a stake into the heart of the 15-year dispute over control of the $1.5 billion DeMoulas supermarket chain, a member of the losing side has asked the US Supreme Court to review the case.

Frances D. Kettenbach, daughter of the late cofounder of the chain, Telemachus ''Mike" Demoulas, has petitioned the high court to look at whether former state Superior Court judge Maria I. Lopez was too biased to handle the case.

Lopez ruled a decade ago that Mike Demoulas defrauded the heirs of his brother George -- the chain's cofounder, who died in 1971 -- of millions of dollars. Lopez ordered a massive transfer of the company's assets from one side of the family to the other.

Three times since then, the state's highest court rejected appeals by the losing side that Lopez was biased. Last December, the Supreme Judicial Court refused to revisit the matter, despite what Kettenbach said was new evidence of prejudice.

Now Kettenbach, of North Andover, has turned to the US Supreme Court.

''I'm optimistic," said her lawyer, Thomas B. Merritt, of Littleton, N.H. ''I feel that there's a compelling federal claim that hasn't been adjudicated before, and I'm hopeful the results will be different."

But Carol Cohen, who represents heirs of George Demoulas, called the March 18 petition a hopeless, last-ditch effort by Mike Demoulas's heirs to regain control of the chain.

The case has been one of the longest and costliest court battles in Massachusetts legal history. The fight over the supermarket empire, which eventually had at least 58 DeMoulas/Market Basket stores in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, has been marked by family bitterness, spy-novel intrigue, and disciplinary charges against three lawyers.

The case dates to 1990, when George Demoulas's heirs sued Mike Demoulas's side of the family, arguing that they had been cheated out of millions of dollars. George Demoulas's side won the case after a jury verdict and rulings by Lopez, who repeatedly rejected motions by the losing side to recuse herself.

The losing side insisted that Lopez had unfairly decided the case against them, contending, among other things, that the lawyer for the winning side dined at a restaurant owned by Lopez's husband, Boston Phoenix publisher Stephen Mindich, while the trial was underway.

Three lawyers for the losing side, meanwhile, were brought up on disciplinary charges before the state Board of Bar Overseers in connection with an elaborate ruse they used to try to find evidence that Lopez was biased.

Lopez resigned from the bench in 2003 after a public outcry over her handling of a case involving the sexual assault of a child.

During hearings before the state Commission on Judicial Conduct before she resigned, she testified that she believed that complaints to the commission had been orchestrated by enemies, including allies of Mike Demoulas, who she said had followed her, searched her trash, eavesdropped on her, and illegally obtained her personal financial records.

On the basis of that testimony -- which Merritt's petition last month said ''unmistakably demonstrates [Lopez's] paranoia, bias, and partiality" -- Kettenbach asked Superior Court Judge Patrick Brady to set aside the verdict transferring control of the supermarket company.

Brady ruled against her, a state Appeals Court panel upheld him, and in December the SJC let the ruling stand.

Nonetheless, Merritt said the case presents the Supreme Court with several important questions, including whether a Massachusetts judge can gauge his or her own ability to remain impartial.

Merritt said his petition might prompt the Supreme Court to consider whether all states should have the same rule concerning such motions.

Cohen said she doubts the Supreme Court will take up the question, in part because the motion was filed long after control of the chain was transferred.

In addition, she said, federal court judges assess their own ability to be impartial, just as Massachusetts jurists do.

Jonathan Saltzman can be reached at jsaltzman@globe.com.