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15 ex-workers of Dynasty seek $3.4M in damages
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Posted on Feb 12 2019
Fifteen former foreign workers of the defunct Tinian Dynasty Hotel & Casino are demanding damages totaling $3.4 million.
The former Tinian Dynasty workers, through counsel Samuel I. Mok, submitted last Friday their statement of damages before the U.S. District Court for the NMI.
The former workers filed their statement of damages following Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona’s order directing them to provide the court with the exact amount of damages they are seeking against the owner and management of the Dynasty.
The former workers’ motion for a default judgment against Dynasty owner Hong Kong (Overseas) Investment Ltd. and its management, Mega Stars Overseas Ltd., has been set for this Thursday, Feb. 14.
In their statement of compensatory and punitive damages, each of the 15 former Dynasty employees seeks $200,000 in punitive damages, for a total of $3 million. Each also demands compensatory damages for lost earnings and employee benefits in different amounts ranging from $16,438 to $48,230, for a total amount of $442,461.
The 15 former employees are Eric F. Dona, Donny Rivera, Melinda Rivera, Chung-Liang Chiu, Shingo Kajiwara, Han Shao, Lorenzo Pacia III, Didith Pacia, Ming Yang Yuan, Chuan Hui Xu, Flordeliza F. Camiguing, Jovelyn F. Reyes, Richard Julio L. Reyes, Ernesto Y. Rivera, and Jose C. Cadion Jr.
Dona and co-plaintiffs recently asked the court to enter a default judgment against HKE and Mega Stars.
Last August, U.S. District Court for the NMI designated judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood adopted Magistrate Judge Heather L. Kennnedy’s recommendation to direct the clerk of court to enter a default judgment against HKE and Mega Stars.
In their lawsuit, Dona and co-plaintiffs alleged that HKE and Mega Stars lied to them that they were legally authorized to work despite the denial of their CW-1 petitions.
In February 2018, Chun Wai Chan, a corporate representative of both HKE and Mega Stars, informed the court that Tinian Dynasty’s operation stopped in August 2015, and when the hotel operation halted in March 2016, no more income could be generated since then.
Chan also informed the court that they could not afford to pay a private counsel in this case.
