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Frommer, Sandra vs. La Casa Zone LLC et al

Superior Court·Suffolk County·Last checked Jul 25, 2026, 8:05 PM·View on masscourts.org ↗

01— Where things stand right now

Sandra Frommer, representing herself, is suing a short-term-rental operator (La Casa Zone LLC) and its owner Mohamed Kassem for allegedly stiffing her on promised compensation and then retaliating against her housing after she reported them to city authorities. The defendants answered and denied everything, but then ignored her discovery requests entirely. On March 9, 2026 (docketed March 19), the judge granted her motion to compel and ordered the defendants to serve discovery responses within 30 days; the judge also declined to hold a case management conference, noting a tracking order already governs the schedule.

02— The case in a nutshell

Sandra Frommer says that between 2023 and 2024 she did substantial work helping Mohamed Kassem expand his short-term-rental business (La Casa Zone LLC) — coordinating leases, furnishing units — on his promise that, instead of a paycheck, he would cover her residential lease for two 15-month terms.

She claims she later discovered the operation was using fake or unlicensed short-term-rental registration numbers on Airbnb and Vrbo listings, and she reported it to Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville officials.

Her complaint alleges that after those reports, Kassem retaliated: he stopped paying, told the building’s management and their lawyer that she was an “unauthorized occupant” who had committed fraud, which she says led to a false no-trespass instruction to Braintree Police naming her, and he obstructed repairs while the Braintree Board of Health was issuing emergency violation orders for gas leaks, no heat, mold, and water intrusion in her unit.

She sued in Suffolk Superior Court on October 27, 2025, bringing eight counts — defamation, Massachusetts Civil Rights Act, interference with quiet enjoyment and tenancy, breach of contract/promissory estoppel, fraud, unjust enrichment, and a reserved Chapter 93A claim — and asks for at least $140,000 plus punitive damages, injunctions, and an alter-ego declaration holding Kassem personally liable.

03— Who's involved
04— What's happening now

The pleadings phase is done. The defendants filed an answer on November 21, 2025 that denies essentially every paragraph and stacks up ten boilerplate affirmative defenses (failure to state a claim, statute of limitations, unclean hands, statute of frauds, failure to mitigate, and so on), plus a jury demand.

Then discovery stalled. Frommer’s affidavit and exhibits show she emailed defense counsel on December 15, 2025 to coordinate discovery and got no response, served interrogatories, document requests, and an insurance-disclosure request on December 23, 2025, and got nothing by the January 22, 2026 deadline. When she followed up, counsel wrote back on January 26 saying “You should have all responses by the end of the week.” Nothing came.

So on February 18, 2026 she filed a package: a motion to compel with a Rule 9C certificate, her sworn affidavit, and the email exhibits — plus a separate request for a case management conference to get discovery deadlines set.

The judge ruled on both on March 9, 2026. The motion to compel was ALLOWED, expressly because Frommer followed Rules 9A and 9C and the defendants filed no opposition at all; the defendants must serve responses within 30 days. The conference request was denied as unnecessary because a tracking order issued back on October 27, 2025 already governs the schedule.

05— What's next

The immediate deadline is the defendants’ discovery responses — due within 30 days of the March 9, 2026 order (notice went out March 31, 2026, which may itself become a fight about when the clock started).

If the defendants produce documents and the insurance disclosure, the case moves into ordinary discovery: depositions, possibly expert or medical records on the emotional-distress claims, then summary judgment briefing.

If they don’t produce, Frommer’s next logical move is a Rule 37 motion for sanctions, which can range from fee awards to orders establishing facts against the defendants, or in extreme cases default. The docket also shows Frommer reserved her Chapter 93A count pending amendment, so a motion to amend to add treble damages and fees is a realistic step.

06— Reading between the lines

Frommer is pro se, but procedurally she has been playing this cleanly and effectively. She tried to confer before serving discovery, documented every email, filed a proper Rule 9C certificate, and attached the defense lawyer’s own “you’ll have it by the end of the week” email as Exhibit A. That’s exactly how you win a motion to compel, and she did — unopposed.

The defense side, at least on this record, looks like it’s doing the bare minimum. The answer is a wall of one-word denials plus a laundry list of canned affirmative defenses that don’t appear tailored to these facts (a statute-of-frauds defense to a defamation and civil-rights case is a tell that it’s a template). Then two months of discovery silence and no opposition to the motion to compel.

I can’t tell from the docket whether that’s a deliberate stall, a lawyer who is overwhelmed, or a client who won’t hand over documents. But the effect is the same: it costs Frommer time and it hands her a clean record of noncompliance she can use to ask for sanctions. It’s a bad look and a risky posture against a plaintiff who is clearly organized.

Worth noting what the insurance-disclosure request signals: Frommer is trying to find out whether there’s a policy that would actually pay a judgment. Against a small LLC and its owner, collectability is often the whole ballgame, and a defendant with no coverage has less incentive to engage.

On the merits, none of this tells you who’s right. Frommer’s allegations are serious and specific — Board of Health emergency orders, a police no-trespass instruction, fabricated rental registration numbers — but they are allegations, fully denied, and she’ll have to prove them. The alleged deal (work in exchange for 30 months of rent, apparently unwritten) is the kind of arrangement that gets hard to prove without documents, which is precisely why this discovery fight matters so much to her.

A candid read, not legal advice.
07— The record, translated

Newest first — the plain-English reading leads; the court's wording follows.