{"id":313390,"date":"2019-12-04T06:00:38","date_gmt":"2019-12-03T20:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=313390"},"modified":"2019-12-04T06:00:38","modified_gmt":"2019-12-03T20:00:38","slug":"contractors-suit-vs-ipi-dismissed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/contractors-suit-vs-ipi-dismissed\/","title":{"rendered":"Contractor\u2019s suit vs IPI dismissed"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Photo shows the fa\u00e7ade of Imperial Pacific Resort.
(MARK RABAGO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona granted yesterday Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC\u2019s motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a former contractor against IPI and unnamed co-defendants.<\/p>\n

Manglona, however, allowed IPI\u2019s former contractor, Pacific Rim Land Development LLC, to amend its lawsuit.<\/p>\n

The judge basically found that Pacific Rim failed to adequately plead diversity jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

Diversity jurisdiction case means that the plaintiff, Pacific Rim, and defendant, IPI, and co-defendants are different citizens from different states.<\/p>\n

Manglona said what she is trying to protect is having an erroneous assumption as to the citizenship of the parties, including the unnamed co-defendants. <\/p>\n

Manglona also denied without prejudice Pacific Rim\u2019s application for mechanic\u2019s lien on the same issue of jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

Pacific Rim was allowed to amend its application to place a mechanic\u2019s lien on IPI\u2019s hotel-casino project and on the land that it sits on.<\/p>\n

A mechanic\u2019s lien refers to a security interest in the title to property for the benefit of those who have supplied labor or materials that improve the property.<\/p>\n

IPI\u2019s general counsel, Phillip J. Tydingco, requested that the hearing on the mechanic\u2019s lien be postponed.<\/p>\n

Tydingco argued that Pacific Rim\u2019s response effectively concedes that their complaint does not contain allegations to support issuance of a mechanic\u2019s lien under Commonwealth law.<\/p>\n

Manglona set a hearing on Pacific Rim\u2019s application for a mechanic\u2019s lien for Tuesday, Dec. 10, at 1:30pm.<\/p>\n

Manglona said the amended application for mechanic\u2019s lien is due no later than today, Wednesday, and briefs are due no later than Friday, Dec. 6.<\/p>\n

In an interview after the hearing, Tydingco said their motion for judgment on the pleadings is like a motion to dismiss and that the judge granted it. However, the judge allowed Pacific Rim to re-file all the paperwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guess that they just need to refile it and follow whatever the court thought was deficient,\u201d Tydingco said.<\/p>\n

In a separate interview, Pacific Rim counsel Colin Thompson said they will be amending their complaint and will be back next week on their application for a mechanic\u2019s lien.<\/p>\n

Thompson said Manglona\u2019s dismissal of the complaint has something to do with pleadings and the way they alleged diversity jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe judge was not satisfied the way we alleged that. We will be making new allegations to establish that,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n

Thompson said what was heard was limited to the issue whether this case could be heard in all the federal court or has to be heard in the Superior Court.<\/p>\n

Thompson said Manglona stated that it could be heard in the District Court if diversity jurisdiction is established.<\/p>\n

On the mechanic\u2019s lien issue, Thompson said the judge denied it on same reason because if the District Court has no jurisdiction in the case, then the case is not going to move forward. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to fix that first before we can move forward on the application for lien and we will be doing that right away and we will be back here next Tuesday to present our case,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The lawyer said Manglona wants to amend the wording, the language, of Pacific Rim\u2019s allegations about diversity jurisdiction. \u201cWho are these LLCs? What is their citizenship? Pacific Rim LLC and IPI LLC. What is their citizenship for the purposes of the federal court\u2019s interpretation,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n

Pacific Rim is suing IPI and five unnamed alleged co-conspirators for breach of contract (construction and promissory note), and unjust enrichment.<\/p>\n

Pacific Rim claimed to have substantially completed or completed the agreed upon construction work for IPI\u2019s casino-resort project on Sept. 30, 2018. <\/p>\n

Thompson said IPI owes Pacific Rim $5.65 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona granted yesterday Imperial Pacific…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[12497],"class_list":["post-313390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","tag-ipi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313390","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=313390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}