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Fund suit vs CUC moved to fed court
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Posted on May 12 2012
By Ferdie de la Torre
Reporter
Reporter
The NMI Retirement Fund yesterday removed its lawsuit against the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. from the Superior Court to the NMI District Court.
The Fund, through counsel Braddock J. Huesman, referred its lawsuit against CUC to U.S. District Court for the NMI Bankruptcy Division designated judge Robert J. Faris for hearing and determination in connection with the Fund’s pending Chapter 11 bankruptcy case.
Huesman filed the Fund’s notice of removal in the district court, while attorneys Christopher M. Timmons and Carolyn M. Kern filed the Fund board’s notice of removal in the Superior Court.
The Fund filed the lawsuit against CUC in May 2011 for alleged failure to pay a total of $4.4 million in employer contributions, penalties, and economic damages. The lawsuit is pending in Superior Court.
According to Huesman, the district court has jurisdiction over the lawsuit because it is related to the Fund’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy case now pending in the district court’s Bankruptcy Division.
Huesman said the claims and causes of action in the CUC case represent significant assets of the Fund’s estate and the resolution or liquidation of such claims will impact the Fund’s Chapter 11 case.
Huesman said the claims in the lawsuit constitute components of a broader-scale effort to recover and administer assets belonging to the Fund-employer contributions to the Fund that have not been paid and which are necessary to the Fund’s restructuring efforts.
Transferring the case to the district court “best facilitates the [Fund’s] goals of efficiently and timely administering [its] affairs and assets through the Chapter 11 case by concentrating all matters.before one court,” Huesman said.
