{"id":282545,"date":"2018-08-20T06:00:15","date_gmt":"2018-08-19T20:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=282545"},"modified":"2018-08-20T06:00:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-19T20:00:15","slug":"9th-circuit-affirms-manglona-ruling-in-flores-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/9th-circuit-affirms-manglona-ruling-in-flores-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"9th Circuit affirms Manglona ruling in Flores\u2019 lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Manglona<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed the federal court\u2019s ruling that denied Derron G. Flores\u2019 request to substitute him as plaintiff in the $40-million lawsuit that his late mother filed against a bank and its former employees.<\/p>\n

The Ninth Circuit judges agreed with U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona that Cecilia Flores\u2019 tort claims were extinguished once she died.<\/p>\n

Citing the CNMI Supreme Court\u2019s decision in Indalecio v. Yarofalir, Ninth Circuit judges said the decision in that case is controlling.<\/p>\n

In the Indalecio case, the Ninth Circuit judges said, the court interpreted the Commonwealth Code, which provides for the survival of tort claims upon the tortfeasor\u2019s death, but does not speak to the survival of claims where the tort victim dies.<\/p>\n

The judges said the court \u201cassume[d] that the Legislature\u2019s silence here was not an oversight, but a calculated decision,\u201d and ruled that \u201cthe NMI has no statute which preserves a tort victim\u2019s after his death.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Ninth Circuit judges said the Indalecio ruling makes clear that Cecilia Flores\u2019 tort claims did not survive her death, and that they are bound by that decision.<\/p>\n

The judges said that Derron Flores\u2019 attempt to distinguish Indalecio is unavailing. They said Indalecio\u2019s interpretation of CNMI law is not limited to wrongful death torts or injuries to the person.<\/p>\n

The case was originally filed by Cecilia Flores in the CNMI Superior Court. It was moved to the federal court. <\/p>\n

Cecila Flores sued Union Bank and its two former employees over a bank manager\u2019s alleged unauthorized release of Donald Flores\u2019 money several years prior to his death. The money was from Donald Flores\u2019 $200,000 time certificate of deposit with Union Bank and was released to a person representing him.<\/p>\n

Cecilia Flores alleged that Union Bank fraudulently \u201callowed an impostor to redeem her 1993 certificate of deposit and hid that fundamental material fact\u2026all these years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Cecilia Flores and her husband, former Saipan Mayor Donald Flores, who bought the certificate of deposit, died while the lawsuit was pending.<\/p>\n

Derron Flores, the son and only known child of the Flores couple, attempted to substitute as plaintiff.<\/p>\n

In an April 2016 order denying Derron Flores\u2019 request to substitute, Manglona ruled that Cecilia Flores\u2019 claims were extinguished when she died in September 2015. Manglona also dismissed Cecilia Flores\u2019 lawsuit.<\/p>\n

Derron, through counsel Juan T. Lizama, then appealed to the Ninth Circuit to reverse Manglona\u2019s ruling. <\/p>\n

In November 2017, federal jurors favored Union Bank in Derron Flores\u2019 separate lawsuit to collect the $200,000 certificate of deposit.<\/p>\n

The jurors found that Donald Flores and Union Bank did enter into a contract. The jurors, however, determined that Derron Flores failed to prove that Union Bank breached the contract by failing to do something that the contract had required it to do without a valid excuse.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has affirmed the federal court\u2019s ruling…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":282546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3873,11175,1925,6037],"class_list":["post-282545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cecilia-flores","tag-derron-flores","tag-ninth-circuit","tag-union-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282545","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=282545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}