U.S. District Court for the NMI designated judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood issued yesterday a consent judgment that Betty Johnson\u2019s Hawaii-based counsel Bronster Hoshibata law firm shall recover $7 million from the CNMI. <\/p>\n
Tydingco-Gatewood said lawyers Margery Bronster and Robert Hatch and the CNMI government have entered into a settlement agreement on the fees and costs the government will pay to the lawyers and this consent judgment is an integral part of that agreement.<\/p>\n
The $7-million consent judgment is enforceable in the event that the CNMI government is in default in the payment of $6.5 million to Bronster Hoshibata law firm.<\/p>\n
In a separate written order yesterday, Tydingco-Gatewood said the $6.5-million fee agreement between the CNMI and the Bronster Hoshibata law firm is approved as of Tuesday, Sept. 9. <\/p>\n
Tydingco-Gatewood heard Tuesday Bronster Hoshibata\u2019s and the CNMI government\u2019s joint motion for approval of the law firm\u2019s fee agreement. No one objected to the motion.<\/p>\n
In her order yesterday, the judge said she is aware that the fee agreement was reached after the parties participated in many months of settlement talks with Hawaii chief bankruptcy judge Robert J. Faris.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving considered the motion for approval as well as all arguments and submissions, the court hereby finds the fee agreement to be fair and reasonable,\u201d Tydingco-Gatewood said.<\/p>\n
Gov. Eloy S. Inos, Finance Secretary Larrisa Larson, the CNMI government, and Finance, through assistant attorney general Teresita J. Sablan, recently joined Bronster Hoshibata\u2019s motion for approval of the attorney\u2019s fee deal.<\/p>\n
Sablan said the Commonwealth maintains its position that Bronster Hoshibata law firm\u2019s fees should be limited to the lodestar amount without a multiplier.<\/p>\n
However, Sablan said, the Commonwealth also recognizes that, if left to decide the matter, Tydingco-Gatewood could award an amount much greater than the lodestar.<\/p>\n
The Inos administration agreed to settle Bronster Hoshibata\u2019s petition for attorney\u2019s fees and costs for payment of $6.5 million (to be paid over three years).<\/p>\n
Bronster Hoshibata\u2019s original demand was for $17.5 million to be paid through installment. <\/p>\n
The administration also settled for $185,000 and $800,000 the petitions for attorney\u2019s fees and costs filed by Johnson\u2019s other counsels, Stephen C. Woodruff and Bruce Jorgensen, respectively.<\/p>\n
The court had already approved Woodruff\u2019s settlement deal. Jorgensen\u2019s deal and a petition for attorney\u2019s fees and costs filed by Johnson\u2019s counsel from San Rafael, California, Timothy Lord, are still subject to court approval. <\/p>\n
Lord\u2019s initial demand for payment of fees was either $3.6 million or $5.9 million. The CNMI opposed granting fees to Lord. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
U.S. District Court for the NMI designated judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood issued yesterday a consent judgment…<\/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":[941,26,93],"class_list":["post-179025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-bronster-hoshibata","tag-cnmi","tag-district-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179025","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=179025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179025\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}