Previous Story
Class suit vs Mobil dismissed
|
Posted on Jan 26 2012
Superior Court associate judge David A. Wiseman has dismissed a class action lawsuit filed by Rep. Janet U. Maratita (Ind.-Saipan) and three other persons against Mobil Oil Mariana Islands Inc.
In granting Mobil Oil’s motion to dismiss, Wiseman determined that Maratita and her co-plaintiffs, Joaquin Q. Atalig, Jose P. Kiyoshi and Felipe Q. Atalig, have not pleaded enough facts to support their claim.
The plaintiffs are accusing Mobil of not using the proper equipment to ensure that harmful chemicals do not leak into the environment when transporting, loading, and storing fuel products. They filed the class action on behalf of all persons who lived in the CNMI from Dec. 16, 1997 to the present.
The plaintiffs, through attorney Ramon Quichocho, asked the court to shut down Mobil’s Saipan terminal and order the oil firm to pay them damages, court costs, and attorney’s fees.
In his written order issued Tuesday, Wiseman said the plaintiffs have not properly pleaded injury in their complaint, nor have they pleaded facts that support their demand for punitive damages.
On the nuisance issue, Mobil argues that nuisance is not properly pled because the harm alleged is the same as the harm suffered by the general public.
Public nuisance is “any unreasonable interference with a right common to the general public.”
Wiseman said plaintiffs have not alleged injury distinctive from that suffered by the general public, and have therefore, not properly alleged nuisance.
On the battery claim, Wiseman said the plaintiffs have not pled why allegedly inhaling chemicals amounts to an offense on their personal dignity or are unwarranted by prevalent social usages.
The emissions were not a service that Mobil introduced into commerce, the judge noted.
The court, he said, does not find that the acts alleged, allowing emissions to enter the environment illegally, are not the type of harm the CNMI Consumer Protection Act was designed to safeguard.
Therefore, the judge added, the claim under the Consumer Protection Act fails to state a legally cognizable claim.
