Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman granted Monday terminated police officer Flor Estabillo\u2019s motion to dismiss the Department of Public Safety\u2019s court action over his appeal.<\/p>\n
Wiseman ruled that the court is not persuaded by DPS\u2019 argument that the Civil Service Commission\u2019s Aug. 11, 2014, ruling on jurisdiction created a legal right in DPS to perform under the Northern Mariana Islands Administrative Code.<\/p>\n
Wiseman said the court does not find that CSC\u2019s Aug. 11 order was a final agency action under the Commonwealth Administrative Procedure Act as a matter of law.<\/p>\n
The Aug. 11 order refers to CSC\u2019s ruling that denied DPS\u2019 motion to dismiss Estabillo\u2019s appeal based on lack of jurisdiction.<\/p>\n
Wiseman also determined that DPS\u2019 petition for judicial review does not plead sufficient facts to show that the underlying agency action was a final agency action as defined in the Commonwealth Administrative Procedure Act.<\/p>\n
According to court records, Estabillo appealed with CSC the decision by DPS to terminate him on June 4, 2014, for unlawful possession of controlled substances and for other reasons.<\/p>\n
DPS, through the Office of the Attorney General, moved to dismiss the appeal, asserting that CSC has no jurisdiction over Estabillo\u2019s termination,<\/p>\n
CSC, however, disagreed, saying it has jurisdiction in the matter. The commission denied DPS\u2019 motion to dismiss Estabillo\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n
This prompted DPS to bring the issue to Superior Court by filing a petition for judicial review. DPS asked the court reverse the commission\u2019s finding that it had jurisdiction over Estabillo\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n
In a motion to dismiss DPS\u2019 petition for judicial review, Estabillo, through counsel Brien Sers Nicholas, argued that the court does not have jurisdiction to rule on the merits of DPS\u2019 petition because the commission\u2019s Aug. 11, 2014 order asserting jurisdiction was not final agency action.<\/p>\n
Nicholas also argued that DPS failed to exhaust its administrative remedies.<\/p>\n
In granting Estabillo\u2019s motion to dismiss, Wiseman said no language in the relevant sections of the Northern Mariana Islands Administrative Code would inform the court that, if DPS\u2019 allegations of fact were true, it would lead to the legal conclusion that the commission\u2019s Aug. 11, 2014, ruling on jurisdiction was a statement of the agency\u2019s final position on the legal rights of the parties.<\/p>\n
Wiseman said NMIAC provides that \u201cthe commission shall render its findings of fact and final decision in writing with service on all parties.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAccordingly, until the commission issues the referenced final decision, the commission\u2019s ruling is tentative or interlocutory,\u201d the judge said.<\/p>\n
In fact, Wiseman noted, the commission\u2019s Aug. 11, 2014, ruling on jurisdiction appears to be made without prejudice, giving more weight to the tentative or interlocutory nature of the order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman granted Monday terminated police officer Flor Estabillo\u2019s motion…<\/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":[54,747,35,3840],"class_list":["post-199193","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-agency","tag-csc","tag-dps","tag-flor-estabillo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199193","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=199193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}