CPA, SMA appeal court orders

The Commonwealth Ports Authority and Star Marianas Air Inc. have both asked the court to reconsider its order for partial summary judgment.

CPA, through attorney Robert T. Torres, has filed a motion to reconsider Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph Camacho’s partial summary judgment, saying the court should modify its order.

SMA, through attorney Mark Scoggins, also filed its own motion for reconsideration, stating that the order denying partial summary judgment is erroneous in some ways and that reconsideration is necessary for these errors to be corrected.

According to Torres, as a matter of law, CPA’s breaches of contract are immaterial breaches while SMA’s failure to pay CPA is a material breach of contract.

“SMA’s material breach of contract relieved CPA from its contractual obligations,” he said.

The Superior Court has set the matter for a motion hearing on Dec. 12, 2023.

Camacho earlier granted in part and denied in part SMA’s motion for summary judgment.

Specifically, partial summary judgment was granted after the court found that CPA breached sections 7.05 and 7.08 of the Airline Use Agreement, which pertains to annual usage rate adjustments and CPA’s failure to provide SMA a copy of every CPA proposed annual budget since the AUA was executed up until it was terminated.

However, the court could not fully grant summary judgment because it found that damages could not be determined without further discovery as the court also found CPA’s counterclaims to be true—that SMA also breached the AUA for non-payments.

SMA is suing CPA and five unnamed co-defendants for breach of contract, violation of anti-head tax, and for unreasonable user fees.

In another previous court order, the court found that Star Marianas has not met its burden of proving claims that CPA breached sections of their AUA, warranting a summary judgment.

SMA and CPA entered into an AUA in April 2009. Twenty years later, on Dec. 14, 2020, SMA sued CPA, claiming the agency committed six breaches of the AUA.

However, after reviewing SMA and CPA’s arguments and facts, Camacho said in his order that there are material facts in dispute and SMA did not support its factual claims to show CPA breached sections 7.01, 7.02, 7.05, 7.06, 7.07, and 7.10.