A woman has filed a lawsuit in Superior Court against the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. and the Department of Public Works to recover for injuries and damages sustained when a cut tree fell directly on top of a vehicle she was driving on Kagman Road last year. <\/p>\n
Patricia Aldan and on behalf of her then 5-year-old child are suing CUC and DPW for negligence. Diego Cabrera, owner of the damaged vehicle, 2005 Kia Spectra, also joined as co-plaintiff in the lawsuit. <\/p>\n
The plaintiffs, through counsel Mark A. Scoggins, asked the court to hold CUC and DPW liable to pay them damages in an amount to be proven at trial.<\/p>\n
According to Scoggins, his clients submitted their claims to the Office of the Attorney General, but more than 90 days have elapsed and that they have not received any response.<\/p>\n
Scoggins stated in the complaint that, shortly before 11am on Feb. 4, 2013, Aldan was driving the vehicle with her minor child as her passenger on Kagman Road.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Scoggins said the government was cutting down trees near the road, but employed no or insufficient personnel, and erected no barriers or signs to direct traffic.<\/p>\n
As Aldan approached the area near where the trees were being cut, she slowed down and proceeded with caution.<\/p>\n
Scoggins said just as Aldan\u2019s vehicle reached the area, she heard shouting and saw a tree falling toward her car. <\/p>\n
Aldan slammed on the brakes, but could not avoid the falling tree. The tree fell directly on top of the car.<\/p>\n
Scoggins said the vehicle was a total loss and that Aldan suffered physical injuries.<\/p>\n
The lawyer said Aldan and her child suffered emotional distress.<\/p>\n
Scoggins said the Commonwealth was negligent and did not exercise due care in cutting trees and by directing traffic away from the tree work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A woman has filed a lawsuit in Superior Court against the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[162,49,1114,259],"class_list":["post-176683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-car","tag-cuc","tag-dpw","tag-lawsuit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176683","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=176683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/176683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=176683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=176683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=176683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}