Massachusetts General Laws

Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151A, § 74 (2026)

Title of statute; construction; purpose

✓ current as of July 2026

Find cases: SyfertCases citing this section MAmalegislature.gov (official) JustiaChapter on Justia CornellLII Search CasesGoogle Scholar

Section 74. This chapter shall be known and may be cited as the Unemployment Insurance Law, and shall be construed liberally in aid of its purpose, which purpose is to lighten the burden which now falls on the unemployed worker and his family.

Notes of Decisions

Cited in 18 cases (1 in the last 5 years), 1975–2024 · leading case: Boston Bicycle Couriers, Inc. v. Deputy Dir. of the Div. of Emp. & Training, 778 N.E.2d 964 (Mass. App. Ct. 2002).

Sort: Relevance Newest Treatment

Boston Bicycle Couriers, Inc. v. Deputy Dir. of the Div. of Emp. & Training, 778 N.E.2d 964 (Mass. App. Ct. 2002). “805, 809 (1996), quoting from G. L. c. 151A, § 74. Given this rejection of the common-law analysis, cases cited by BBC, such as McDermott’s Case, 283 Mass.”

Garfield v. Dir. of the Div. of Emp. Sec., 384 N.E.2d 642 (Mass. 1979). “Under such circumstances, the compensation scheme aims to "lighten the burden” of unemployment (G. L. c. 151A, § 74) for those who are “compelled to leave work through *97 no ’fault’ of their own, whatever the source of the compulsion, personal or employer-initiated.”

Comm'r of the Div. of Unemployment Assistance v. Town Taxi of Cape Cod, Inc., 862 N.E.2d 430 (Mass. App. Ct. 2007). “’ G. L. c. 151A, § 74.” Athol Daily News, supra at 174.”

State Street Bank & Trust Co. v. Deputy Dir. of the Div. of Emp. & Training, 845 N.E.2d 395 (Mass. App. Ct. 2006). · cites it 2× “’ ” Morillo, supra at 766, quoting from G. L. c. 151A, § 74. The second was that allowing Morillo to collect benefits would have an economically neutral impact on the employer because “his [employment security] account[ 5 ] [would] be charged regardless of the identity of…”

DiGiulio v. Dir. of the Dep't of Unemployment Assistance, 113 N.E.3d 850 (Mass. App. Ct. 2018). “eaving a job to follow a spouse or partner to another locality was at one time considered an "urgent, compelling and necessitous" reason for leaving gainful employment under paragraph three, since the 1992 amendment inserting paragraph twelve the statute has explicitly…”

Emerson v. Dir. of the Div. of Emp. Sec., 471 N.E.2d 97 (Mass. 1984). “G. L. c. 151A, § 74. Our attention has been called to cases in other jurisdictions and, in all but one, the courts have gone in the direction which we follow today.”

Pavian, Inc. v. Hickey, 895 N.E.2d 480 (Mass. 2008). “” G. L. c. 151A, § 74. Workers who are discharged from their jobs through no fault of their own face hardship and anxiety, which should not be exacerbated by administrative procedures governing their appeals.”

Gupta v. Deputy Dir. of Div. of Emp. & Training, 818 N.E.2d 217 (Mass. App. Ct. 2004). “Compare G. L. c. 151A, § 74 (unemployment compensation statute is to be construed liberally to achieve its purpose); Howard Bros.”

Roush v. Dir. of the Div. of Emp. Sec., 387 N.E.2d 126 (Mass. 1979). “By its terms, the Employment Security Law neither expressly excludes nor expressly includes stepchildren in the class of dependents which would entitle a claimant to a dependency allowance.”

DaLomba v. Dir. of the Div. of Emp. Sec., 337 N.E.2d 687 (Mass. 1975). “151A, § 39, reads in pertinent part as follows: “A party entitled to notice may request a hearing within five days after receipt, but in no case more than seven days after mailing of said notice.”

O'Reilly v. Dir. of the Div. of Emp. Sec., 388 N.E.2d 1181 (Mass. 1979). “G. L. c. 151A, § 74. We add: First, for elderly workers disqualification might be particularly cruel because they would often have peculiar difficulty obtaining fresh employment which (as indicated above) would be a condition of their reinstating themselves as possible…”

DeCordova & Dana Museum & Park v. Dir. of the Div. of Emp. Sec., 346 N.E.2d 699 (Mass. 1976). “Our decision conforms to the mandate of G. L. c. 151A, § 74, as appearing in St. 1949, c.”

Show all 18 citing cases →

Annotations are extracted automatically from the opinions in the Syfert caselaw corpus and ranked by authority, recency, and treatment. Dots show Syfertize treatment of the citing case itself.