Four years after settlement, NMI pays parents of infant who died in delivery

Four years after reaching a $35,000 settlemen, the CNMI government finally paid a couple who filed a wrongful death lawsuit over the death of their baby during delivery at the Commonwealth Health Center.

The CNMI government also paid Gorjonny Camacho, who holds a $10,000 judgment against the government in connection with his medical malpractice lawsuit against CHC.

Michael W. Dotts, counsel for couple Jotonia B. Aguon and Timothy Cruz, and Camacho, informed the Superior Court yesterday about the judgments being satisfied. Dotts did not elaborate.

Dotts’ notification about the payments came a week before the Dec. 5, 2016, hearing for Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho to decide whether the 2016 Budget Act is unconstitutional for not listing court judgments owed by the government.

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.

In July 2013, a $10,000 judgment was entered in favor of Camacho against the CNMI.

To collect payment on the two judgments that were entered in 2013, Dotts filed motions for orders in aid of judgment. He asked the court to declare the 2016 Budget Act unconstitutional. The two cases were consolidated.

According to the couple’s wrongful death lawsuit, Aguon was admitted to the Obstetric-Gynecology 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, there was an increase in the child’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.

In Camacho’s medical malpractice lawsuit filed in 2012, Camacho went to CHC for an appendectomy, but the surgeon instead allegedly used permanent stitches instead of dissolving stitches.

As a result, a skin nodule developed on the site of the surgery, causing him pain and forcing him to undergo a second surgery to remove the skin nodule and remove his stitches.