Bruce Jorgensen, counsel for Commonwealth Retirement Association board member Sapuro Rayphand, has asked the U.S. District Court for the NMI to allow the removal of the NMI Retirement Fund\u2019s lawsuit against the CNMI government from the Superior Court to the district court.<\/p>\n
In Rayphand\u2019s opposition to the Fund\u2019s motion to remand the lawsuit to the Superior Court, Jorgensen said that CRA\u2019s standing as a post-judgment intervenor has been recognized by the parties in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Jorgensen said that Superior Court associate judge Kenneth L. Govendo granted CRA\u2019s intervention.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore than 19 months have lapsed since intervention transpired\u2014during which CRA members and non-members, including Fund retiree beneficiaries, and the general public, have witnessed the Fund\u2019s rapidly escalating demise,\u201d the lawyer said.<\/p>\n
On the Fund\u2019s motion to sanction Jorgensen, Jorgensen said that Fund counsel Braddock Huesman\u2019s assertion is a \u201cfrivolous sanction request that does not merit monetary award.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jorgensen said the documents he submitted in court in a separate lawsuit filed by unnamed retirees against the CNMI government and the Fund, \u201chave chronicled with specificity the lavish fees bestowed at expense of the Fund\u2019s rapidly dwindling money, upon Huesman and other Fund privately-retained though politically-favored counsel\u2014hundreds of thousands over a year, has produced little more than just accumulation in the hands of Fund counsel.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRemoval in lieu of remand promotes judicial economy while averting conflicts of law as between this federal court and the CNMI Judiciary respecting not merely present claims, but those visibly on the horizon of federal question derivation,\u201d Jorgensen said.<\/p>\n
Rayphand has notified the District Court that he wants the Fund\u2019s lawsuit against the CNMI government to be removed from the Superior Court and transferred to the federal court.<\/p>\n
Rayphand stated that it has been more than two years now since Govendo rendered a $230-million judgment in the case yet there has been little, if any, meaningful steps toward enforcement of that judgment.<\/p>\n
Huesman, in a motion to remand, argued that Rayphand\u2019s notice of removal is defective as CRA is not a defendant in the matter and thus cannot remove the case.<\/p>\n
Even if CRA is considered a defendant for removal purposes, Huesman said that not all defendants have agreed to removal.<\/p>\n
Huesman asked the U.S. District Court to hold Rayphand and Jorgensen liable to pay the Fund\u2019s attorneys\u2019 fees in answering to their court action \u201cthat was completely devoid of merit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last week, Gov. Benigno R. Fitial and Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos agreed with the Fund that the Fund\u2019s lawsuit should be remanded to the Superior Court.<\/p>\n
Fitial and Inos, in his capacity as then Finance secretary, through assistant attorney general Michael A. Stanker, filed in District Court a joinder in the Fund\u2019s motion to remand.<\/p>\n
Stanker did not present any argument on behalf of Fitial and Inos in the joinder. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bruce Jorgensen, counsel for Commonwealth Retirement Association board member Sapuro Rayphand, has asked the U.S. District Court for the NMI to allow the removal of the NMI Retirement Fund\u2019s lawsuit against the CNMI government from the Superior Court to the district court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-155487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155487","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}