## Facts

- York Ford, Inc. operated an automobile dealership in Saugus, Massachusetts, and used a nearby parcel (Lot A-112) in a residential zoning district to park dealership inventory for over thirty years.
- York claimed the parking was a lawful preexisting nonconforming use connected to its contiguous dealership property in a business district.
- In 1992, York sought a special permit from the local zoning board to extend the parking further into Lot A-112 and to replace an existing autobody building with a newer structure.
- After a public hearing, the board denied the special permit in a written decision, finding (1) the existing use was “not non-conforming but illegal,” and (2) the proposed expansion would be substantially more detrimental to the neighborhood.
- York did not file a timely statutory appeal from the 1992 denial.
- In 1993, after the appeal period had run, the building inspector issued a zoning enforcement order directing York to remove all business-related vehicles from Lot A-112 as a current bylaw violation.
- York appealed the enforcement order to the board, but the board refused to hear it, treating the appeal as an identical, repetitious attempt to revisit the 1992 determination.
- York filed a statutory zoning appeal and a separate declaratory judgment action in Superior Court; the court denied relief and dismissed the declaratory action.
- York appealed the Superior Court judgments.

## Issues

1. Whether issue preclusion barred York from contesting, in an enforcement-order appeal, the legality of its parking use after an unappealed zoning board decision had determined the use was illegal.
2. Whether the zoning board could refuse to hear York’s enforcement-order appeal as repetitious of the earlier special-permit proceeding.
3. Whether declaratory judgment relief was available to relitigate the legality of the use or to bypass the missed statutory appeal from the 1992 decision.

## Decision

- The Appeals Court affirmed the judgments against York.
- The court held that the 1992 zoning board determination that York’s existing use was illegal was final and binding because York did not timely appeal it.
- The court applied issue preclusion to prevent York from relitigating whether the use was a lawful preexisting nonconforming use in the later enforcement-order dispute.
- The court upheld the board’s refusal to rehear the matter in the enforcement-order appeal because the controlling issue had already been decided.
- The court affirmed dismissal of the declaratory judgment action because declaratory relief could not be used to circumvent the statutory review scheme and time limits.

## Legal Principles

- A final, unappealed zoning board decision can have issue-preclusive effect as to issues actually litigated and essential to the decision, where judicial review was available.
- When a zoning board’s earlier decision necessarily determines the legal status of an existing use, a party may not relitigate that determination through a later appeal from an enforcement order addressing the same use.
- Local boards may decline to reopen matters where a later filing is, in substance, a collateral attack on a prior final administrative adjudication.
- Declaratory judgment is unavailable as a substitute for, or end-run around, a missed statutory appeal under the zoning act’s exclusive review procedures and deadlines.

## Conclusion

Because the zoning board’s unappealed 1992 decision finally determined that York’s parking use on the residential lot was illegal, York was collaterally estopped from challenging the enforcement order on that ground, and it could not revive the dispute through a repetitious board appeal or a declaratory judgment action.


York Ford, Inc. v. Bldg. Inspector & Zoning Adm'r of Saugus, 38 Mass. App. Ct. 938, 647 N.E.2d 85 (1995)