The petitioner appeals under G. L. c. 151A, Section 42, from the allowance by a judge of a District Court of the respondent director's motion to dismiss the petition for review because the issue was moot. There is a report thereon to this court which contains all material evidence. In one benefit year (see G. L. c. 151A, Section 1 [c]), the petitioner made claims for two distinct periods of unemployment. In the affidavit on the motion to dismiss it is alleged, and the petitioner does not deny, that as a result of the second such claim within the benefit year the petitioner received all the benefits which could have been paid to him in that year. See G. L. c. 151A, Sections 29 and 30. It thus would have been useless for the judge of the District Court to proceed to a decision on the merits of the petitioner's claim to benefits for the first period of unemployment which had been dismissed by the board of review. That the case had become moot was properly and seasonably brought to the attention of the court by the affidavit of an officer of the Division of Employment Security. Swampscott v. Knowlton Arms, Inc. 272 Mass. 475, 476-477. Hubrite Informal Frocks, Inc. v. Kramer, 297 Mass. 530, 532. Orient Realty Co. Inc. v. Assad, ante, 764.

Order affirmed.

In these two actions of tort tried together the individual plaintiff alleges malicious interference by the defendant in certain business negotiations of the individual plaintiff and with franchises which he had had as an automobile dealer, conversion of personal property, and wrongful eviction. The corporate plaintiff alleges malicious interference with its business relations by the defendant. The plaintiffs excepted to the granting of the defendant's motions for directed verdicts, denial of the plaintiffs' motions to amend their declarations, and to the exclusion of certain evidence. There was no error. The court properly directed verdicts on counts (1) by the individual plaintiff alleging loss of a right of redemption of certain property in that the right of redemption was in the corporate plaintiff and not in him personally; (2) by the individual plaintiff for malicious interference with a dealer franchise in that sufficient evidence to support it was lacking; (3) by the corporate plaintiff for malicious interference in its affairs in that there was no evidence to show that the negotiations with which the defendant's conduct was alleged to have interfered were likely to have succeeded or that the defendant's conduct was the cause of their failure (see Caverno v. Fellows, 300 Mass. 331, 336-337, and cases cited); (4) by the individual plaintiff for conversion in that the alleged conversion related to property against which the Federal tax authorities had asserted liens thereby precluding a possible suit for conversion (Marshall Vessels, Inc. v. Wright, 331 Mass. 487, 489, United States v. Greenville, 118 F. 2d 963, 965 [4th Cir.], United States v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. 130 F. 2d 149, 151 [2d Cir.], Welsh v. United States, 220 F. 2d 200, 203 [Ct. App. D. C.]; see Randall v. Colby, 190 F. Supp. 319, 335 [D. C. Iowa]; see also Glass City Bank v. United States, 326 U.S. 265, 267); and (5) on a count for wrongful eviction for lack of evidence. All exclusions of evidence concerning which the plaintiffs complain were proper on the grounds of

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irrelevancy. There was no abuse of discretion by the trial judge in denying the plaintiffs' motions to amend their declarations at the time of trial. See Peterson v. Hopson, 306 Mass. 597, 601; Fryefield v. Boston Diaper Serv. Inc. 338 Mass. 401, 404.

Exceptions overruled.