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Nightclub operator, officer sue Labor
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Posted on Jun 18 2008
The operator and an officer of a karaoke bar have brought to court the Department of Labor’s decision barring them from employing alien workers for numerous alleged violations of labor laws.
Petitioners Kaleidoscope Inc., owner of Hot City, and Kaleidoscope principal Jeff P. Santos, asked the Superior Court to review the Labor proceedings.
The petitioners, through counsel Mark B. Hanson, asked the court to rescind Labor’s administrative order and the Labor’s secretary’s decision.
Hanson asserted that Labor’s actions are “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and not otherwise in accordance with the law.”
Hanson said the administrative proceedings in the hearing office were defective for a variety of procedural and substantive reasons.
“Kaleidoscope and Santos were denied proper notice and the effective assistance of counsel in the proceedings before the administrative hearing office,” the lawyer said.
He said the administrative order is based on insufficient or erroneous evidence.
In his administrative order issued in 2006, then Labor administrative hearing officer and now Labor director Barry Hirsbein determined an abuse of business entry permits involving the petitioners, who recruited musicians from the Philippines.
Hirshbein sanctioned Kaleidoscope and Santos to pay a $3,000 fine and ordered them to pay a total of $6,088 in unpaid wages and liquidated damages to three musicians—Jesus M. Gavieres Jr., Ariel G. Gutierrez, and Michele B. Mangilinan.
The hearing officer referred the matter to the Attorney General’s Office for investigation into possible immigration fraud.
Kaleidoscope and Santos appealed, but in April 2008 the Labor secretary affirmed Hirshbein’s decision.
In Kaleidoscope and Santos’ petition for judicial review, Hanson said Labor never issued a briefing schedule nor allowed a hearing on appeal, in violation of the petitioners’ due process rights under the CNMI and U.S. constitutions.
He said Labor failed to allow his clients a meaningful opportunity to argue the merits of their appeal.
