The Superior Court has no jurisdiction to hear a motion to declare the 2016 Budget Act unconstitutional, according to the Office of the Attorney General yesterday.<\/p>\n
Assistant attorney general David Lochabay also asserted that the plaintiffs, who filed such a request to declare, have no standing to assert the claims they made in the motion.<\/p>\n
Lochabay said plaintiffs have no property right to payment of their judgments at any particular time, including through the 2016 budget.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs they have no property right they have no constitutional protection and the constitutional claims fail,\u201d said Lochabay in the government\u2019s opposition to the motion to declare.<\/p>\n
The government counsel said plaintiffs entered into stipulated judgments and any harm they suffered as a result is self-inflicted.<\/p>\n
Attorney Michael W. Dotts, counsel for the parents of a baby who died during delivery in 2012 at the Commonwealth Health Center, has asked the Superior Court to declare the 2016 Budget Act unconstitutional. <\/p>\n
Dotts said the Budget Act of 2016 is unconstitutionally unbalanced under the Commonwealth Constitution, Article 3, Section 9(a) because it did not provide for the payment of judgments in a reasonable amount.<\/p>\n
Further, Dotts said, the 2016 Budget Act is unconstitutional under both the Commonwealth Constitution and the U.S. Constitution as violating both procedural due process and equal protection.<\/p>\n
Dotts is counsel for Jotonia B. Aguon and Timothy Cruz, who are holding a $35,000 judgment against the government over the death of their child.<\/p>\n
Dotts is also counsel for Gorjonny Camacho, who is holding a $10,000 judgment against the government in connection with his medical malpractice lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Camacho went to CHC for an appendectomy, but the surgeon instead allegedly used permanent stitches instead of dissolving stitches. <\/p>\n
As a result, a skin nodule developed on the site of the surgery, causing him pain and forcing him to undergo a second surgery to remove the skin nodule and remove his stitches.<\/p>\n
Dotts brought up the issue of unbalanced 2016 budget in order to collect payments for court judgments against the government.<\/p>\n
In the government\u2019s opposition filed yesterday, Lochabay said Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho has exceeded the court\u2019s jurisdiction by ordering a hearing on whether the government\u2019s 2016 budget should be held unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
Lochabay said whatever the extent of the Superior Court\u2019s authority under the law, it certainly does not include finding the government\u2019s budget unconstitutional.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no rational and substantial argument that could support the trial court\u2019s decision,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lochabay said plaintiffs do not have standing to bring this motion, as they have suffered no injury-in-fact, a requirement of standing.<\/p>\n
Lochabay said plaintiffs requested judgments, not settlements.<\/p>\n
\u201cPlaintiffs could have had settlements had they so requested. Thus, any injury plaintiffs have is self-inflicted,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Superior Court has no jurisdiction to hear a motion to declare the 2016 Budget…<\/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":[3150,4025,86,88],"class_list":["post-224130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-budget-act","tag-commonwealth-constitution","tag-oag","tag-superior-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224130","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=224130"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224130\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}