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Fitial awaits AGO’s move in Fund’s lawsuit
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Posted on Nov 28 2008
Gov. Benigno R. Fitial said it is up to the Attorney General’s Office to make the next move with respect to the Superior Court’s decision that found the CNMI government and him liable in the lawsuit filed by the Retirement Fund over the government’s failure to remit the required employer contributions.
“I don’t tell them what to do. They are the legal experts. I rely on their expert advice,” said Fitial in an interview with Saipan Tribune.
The governor said the court should look at the merits of the case “instead of the personalities.”
The decision was a default judgment because the court said the AGO took too long to answer the lawsuit. When asked to comments on this, Fitial replied: “When you commit a sin, you go to confession and you get forgiveness.”
Associate Judge Kenneth Govendo recently granted the Fund’s request for default judgment after the AGO, as counsel for Fitial and the government, waited nearly two years to answer the lawsuit.
Govendo found no adequate reason for the delay and ordered Fitial’s and the government’s answer to the complaint be stricken from the record.
The judge said the matter represents an issue of vital importance that will have far reaching consequences for every family in the Commonwealth.
“For the Commonwealth to say that it was unable to answer a lawsuit potentially worth upwards of $91 million due to the ‘press of other business’ is both absurd and reprehensible,” Govendo said.
He said the sole issue remaining to be determined is the amount of damages owed the Fund.
At the hearing, when asked to explain the delay in answering the complaint, assistant attorney general Anthony Welch reportedly replied: “I messed up. It was me. If you need to sanction someone it should be me. It was my fault.”
The Fund filed the lawsuit against the government, Fitial, Department of Finance, and Finance Secretary Eloy Inos in 2006 over the government’s failure to remit required payments, now reportedly reaching over $119.6 million.
