This case raises the issue whether a business should be exposed to statutory damages and potentially significant attorneys’ fees under the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act, Mass. G.L. c. 93A, § 9, when the consumer-plaintiff does not claim to have suffered any actual harm. The plaintiffs in this case, Barry Hersehenow and Dana Beaumier, rented vehicles from Enterprise Rental’s Boston branches in 2001. Each executed a rental agreement and purchased “collision damage waiver” (CDW) coverage. In their lawsuit, the plaintiffs alleged that the rental agreement contained exclusions from CDW coverage that are statutorily prohibited. Plaintiffs were not denied coverage under the CDWs, nor did they sustain any damage to their rented vehicles. In 2002, the plaintiffs filed a purported class action in the Massachusetts Superior Court charging Enterprise with improper exclusions from CDW in violation of Mass. G.L. c. 90, § 32E½ and c. 93A, § 9. The trial court consolidated their case with another related case, Roberts v. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Co. (another purported class action in which the plaintiffs allege that Enterprise failed to disclose, in violation of Mass. G.L. c. 90, § 32E½ (B)(2), that the CDW might duplicate coverage already provided by the lessee’s auto insurance policy), and dismissed both cases, accepting Enterprise’s argument that neither c. 90 nor c. 93A provides a private right of action for enforcement of an auto rental company’s CDW duties. Plaintiffs filed an appeal and the consolidated cases are not before the Massachusetts Appeals Court. On July 30, 2004, NELF filed a motion for permission to file an amicus brief, along with its amicus brief, in support of Enterprise. In its amicus brief, NELF did not address the question whether or not a private right of action exists under the aforementioned statutes (although it stated its agreement with this basis for the trial court’s dismissal), because that issue had been adequately addressed by Enterprise. Rather, NELF focused on an alternative basis for dismissing the consolidated complaints, namely that the plaintiffs in that matter had failed to allege that Enterprise’s purported violations had caused them any actual damage. Pointing to a recent Appeals Court decision holding that there can be no liability under c. 93A where there is no proof that the defendant’s conduct harmed the plaintiff, Lord v. Commercial Union Ins. Co., 60 Mass. App. Ct. 309 (2004), NELF pointed out that the Hershenow plaintiffs had never been denied CDW coverage and that the plaintiff in Roberts, while he challenged Enterprise’s placement of a statutory notice that CDW coverage may be unnecessary, never actually purchased any CDW coverage with his car rental. NELF distinguished this case, and the holding in Lord, from the Supreme Judicial Court’s holding in Leardi v. Brown, 394 Mass. 151 (1985), which held , in the landlord-tenant context, that the invasion of a legally protected interest could establish liability for statutory damages and fees. NELF argued that, as the Appeals Court had observed in Lord, the Leardi holding was intended to be limited to its particular facts and did not create a general right to recover statutory damages and fees under c. 93A upon any technical invasion of a legal right. In this connection, NELF pointed out that in c. 93A cases after Leardi, the Supreme Judicial Court has continued to require the plaintiff to prove that the defendant’s conduct caused him actual harm, even when the defendant has committed a per se violation of c. 93A. Finally, NELF argued that requiring proof of actual harm before damages and fees can be awarded under c. 93A, preserves a reasonable balance between the interests of businesses and consumers and, for the court to hold otherwise, would inevitably encourage abusive litigation that, especially when such cases were brought as class actions, would expose Massachusetts businesses to the threat of potentially large awards of attorneys’ fees in situations where the plaintiffs-consumers had never suffered any actual harm.