Couple still waiting for govt payment in death of baby

Two years since the CNMI government settled for $35,000 a couple’s wrongful death lawsuit over the death of their child during delivery at the Commonwealth Health Center, not a single penny has yet to be paid.

Jotonia B. Aguon and Timothy Cruz, through counsel Michael Dotts, are now asking the Superior Court to issue an order in aid of judgment, directing the government to pay them the final judgment of $35,000 that was entered in July 2013.

According to Dotts, not even a partial payment has ever been made.

Dotts, as counsel for Aguon and Cruz, and then-assistant attorney general Joey P. San Nicolas, as counsel for the government, signed an agreement for an entry of $35,000 judgment against the Commonwealth on July 17, 2013.

Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho granted yesterday the couple’s request for a hearing date, setting it on Nov. 17, 2015, at 1:30pm. The government was given until Oct. 30, 2015, to file any opposition to the motion.

According to the wrongful death lawsuit, Aguon was admitted to the OB ward of CHC for a normal delivery on Nov. 10, 2010. Aguon was on her 38th week of pregnancy. She was assisted by a midwife.

After several hours of pushing, there was an increase in the baby’s heart rate. Despite being alive in the womb, the child was later born dead.

Dotts alleged that the government was negligent in the staffing at CHC and that the doctor was negligent in failing to timely recognize fetal distress and failing to perform a C-section.

The parties settled the case in 2013.

In plaintiffs’ motion for an order in aid of judgment, Dotts pointed out that for over two years, the judgment against the government remains unpaid.

Dotts said his clients had no legal recourse because under a CNMI Supreme Court ruling in the case of Marine Revitalization Corp., a CNMI court may not direct the appropriation of funds to satisfy judgments against the government.

Now, Dotts said, with the Appropriations and Budget Authority Act of 2016, the court has the power to aid Aguon and Cruz.

Under the Act, the lawyer said, $8,000 is expressly appropriated for the payment of judgments against the government.

Further, Dotts noted, the Act vests the governor with “reprogramming authority within the Executive Branch.”

“This authority essentially means that the amount of the appropriation to the Executive Branch has also been appropriated to the payment of judgments,” he said.

Dotts asserted that no further action by the Legislature is required to appropriate money for the payment of judgments as the appropriation has been made.

Under this authority, he said, the governor is required to allocate additional funds to the payment of judgments against the CNMI government, because otherwise the new budget, with merely $8,000 allocated to payments of judgments on its face, would violate the constitutional mandate that an annual budget be “balanced.”

A “balanced budget,” he said, is not spending the same amount of money received without paying debts.

For a budget to be “balanced,” it must pay all lawful obligations and then limit the amount to be spent on operations to the amount left over after paying debts, Dotts said.

“Certainly, a government can plan for the retirement of large debts over time, and work with the courts and the judgment creditors to set up schedules for how large judgments will be satisfied,” he said.

But the government, Dotts added, cannot just ignore judgments and make no arrangements to pay them, as it has done with regard to the $35,000 judgment in this case.

In December 2013, a lawmaker disclosed that aside from unpaid land compensations, the government has yet to pay a total of $346,056 in court judgments for wrongful deaths and medical malpractice.

Last year, based on government records, it was reported that the government’s unpaid compensation has reached over $100 million for more than 300 families whose lands were taken to build public access roads, wetlands, and ponding basins years ago.