The U.S. District Court for the NMI dismissed Wednesday a lawsuit filed by a couple against Rota Mayor Melchor A. Mendiola and several other government employees for allegedly invading their farm and destroying their crops and plants at the Sabana Protected Areas.<\/p>\n
Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona dismissed with prejudice the lawsuit filed by Nurul Islam Paeda and Elizabeth Atalig Paeda after the parties reached a settlement. The court, however, shall retain jurisdiction over the case to enforce the settlement agreement.<\/p>\n
Manglona granted the parties\u2019 agreement to dismiss from the case Mendiola\u2019s co-defendants: David M. Calvo, Brian M. Mendiola, Harry M. Mendiola, Francisco L. Mesngon, Michael B. Manglona, Benedicto M. San Nicolas, and 10 unnamed defendants.<\/p>\n
The judge substituted these co-defendants with the Municipality of Rota, saying the municipality will assume all obligations of the dismissed defendants.<\/p>\n
Each party agreed to bear his or her own costs and attorneys\u2019 fees.<\/p>\n
Attorney Ramon K. Quichocho is counsel for the Paedas. Attorney Joaquin DLG. Torres is counsel for Mendiola and co-defendants. <\/p>\n
The Paeda couple filed the lawsuit in May 2011. They sued the defendants for conspiracy to deprive them of property, deprivation of property, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.<\/p>\n
In their complaint, the Paedas asked the court to order the defendants to immediately cease and desist from harassing or bothering them, or stealing or destroying their properties.<\/p>\n
Quichocho said that, on Jan 21, 2011, the defendants bulldozed the plaintiffs\u2019 crops and opened at least four undesignated right of ways through the couple\u2019s farm.<\/p>\n
Quichocho said that Mr. Paeda has been farming at the Sabana Protected Areas since 1991. Sabana is a protected area on Rota but it is also designated for farming activities, under the supervision of the Department of Lands and Natural Resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The U.S. District Court for the NMI dismissed Wednesday a lawsuit filed by a couple against Rota Mayor Melchor A. Mendiola and several other government employees for allegedly invading their farm and destroying their crops and plants at the Sabana Protected Areas.<\/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-160044","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\/160044","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=160044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160044\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}