Massachusetts Court Addresses Limits of Chapter 93A Claims in Vacation Rental Injury Case

On March 24, 2026, in Arana v. Molta, plaintiff Isabel Arana brought an action under Chapter 93A, Section 9, seeking to recover for personal injuries she sustained after falling through the pool deck of a vacation rental property in Dennis, Massachusetts. The property is owned by Robert Molta and Catherine Molta. The plaintiff also sued WeNeedAVacation.com, LLC (WNAV), the website the Moltas used to list their property. The U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted summary judgment in defendants’ favor on the Chapter 93A claims. This decision reinforces several limits on Chapter 93A, including statutory inapplicability, the requirement of non-speculative injury and causation, and the protection afforded to online platforms under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

First, the court rejected the plaintiff’s theory that the defendants violated Chapter 93A by failing to comply with the $1 million liability insurance requirement under Massachusetts General Law 175, Section 4F. That decision arose from the Moltas’ decision to enter into a 32‑day rental agreement, which was structured to avoid the COVID‑era ban on “short‑term rentals” of 31 days or fewer and therefore fell outside Section 4F. As a result, the insurance mandate in Section 4F (requiring insurance of not less than $1,000,000) did not apply as a matter of law, and any Chapter 93A claim predicated on failing to comply with that statute failed. Also, the court held that, even if Section 4F applied, the plaintiff failed to establish the required causal connection between the alleged statutory noncompliance and her injuries. Her physical injuries from falling through the deck were not caused by the amount of insurance coverage maintained (or not maintained), and her theory of economic harm (based on the possibility of a future verdict beyond $500,000 that would exceed the available insurance coverage) was deemed impermissibly speculative. The court emphasized that Chapter 93A requires a concrete, non-speculative injury, not a contingent or inchoate risk of future loss.

Second, the court granted summary judgment to WNAV on the plaintiff’s Chapter 93A claim alleging misrepresentations and omissions concerning the safety of the pool deck. The court held that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act barred any state-law liability against WNAV based on statements or photographs provided by homeowners in online listings. Because WNAV did not draft, edit, or contribute to the content of the listing here, it could not be treated as the publisher or speaker of that information. This ruling foreclosed any attempt to repackage alleged listing inaccuracies as Chapter 93A violations against the hosting platform.

Third, the court addressed whether WNAV’s own website statements — including generalized marketing language about providing “professional” services and helping homeowners be “effective and responsible landlords” — could constitute actionable deception under Chapter 93A. It concluded that no reasonable jury could interpret such broad, promotional statements as representations that WNAV had inspected or verified the structural integrity of the Moltas’ pool deck. The court characterized these statements as general descriptions of services, not specific factual assurances about the safety of any particular property. Likewise, the plaintiff’s omission theory failed because there was no evidence that WNAV knew of any defect in the pool deck. Generally, there is no liability under Chapter 93A for failure to disclose information a party does not possess and did not have a duty to obtain. In short, the court held that the record lacked evidence of any deceptive act, unfair practice, or knowing omission by WNAV.

Taken together, the decision highlights several principles in Chapter 93A litigation:

(1) Not every alleged regulatory violation supports a 93A claim, i.e., there is no “per se” injury under Section 9.
(2) Causation and actual injury remain indispensable elements, and speculative economic theories will not suffice.
(3) Generalized marketing statements, absent specific factual misrepresentations or knowledge of undisclosed defects, do not rise to the level of unfair or deceptive acts.