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Dialysis patient insists on sanction vs Brown
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Posted on Dec 24 2005
A dialysis patient is insisting that Attorney General Pamela Brown should be sanctioned for suing her to block the Marianas Public Lands Authority from disbursing land compensation to her.
Rosario DLG. Kumagai, through counsel Brien Sers Nicholas, filed the notice of appeal to the Superior Court.
Kumagai appealed the order issued on Dec. 7, 2005 by Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman that denied her motion for reconsideration over the court’s refusal to sanction Brown.
Kumagai asserted that sanctions in the form of attorney’s fees are necessary to “prevent manifest injustice.”
Kumagai has been a dialysis patient at the Commonwealth Health Center since 1998.
Brown had filed the lawsuit to stop MPLA from disbursing a total of $1.3 million in land compensation to Kumagai and Victoria S. Nicholas, who owned wetlands.
Brown, on behalf of the CNMI government, asked the court to enjoin the defendants and their attorneys or agents from drawing down a publicly financed Land Compensation Funds and disbursing $1.16 million to Nicolas and $159,496.43 to Kumagai.
Brown asked the court to issue a declaration that wetlands that are not used for right-of-way purposes cannot be compensated using Land Compensation Funds.
In September 2005, Wiseman granted Kumagai’s motion to dismiss Brown’s lawsuit against her. The judge ordered the Commonwealth Development Authority to proceed with the disbursement of a requisition authorizing payment of $159,408 in land compensation to Kumagai.
Kumagai then filed a motion for reconsideration.
On Dec. 7, Wiseman denied the motion. He said he was not impressed by Brown’s arguments in support of her opposition to Kumagai’s motion to dismiss and finds her motive for some of her actions highly questionable.
However, Wiseman said “the court is unable to find objectively that the Attorney General’s Office’s conduct, however, perfunctory, rises to the level clearly evincing bad faith.”
“For this reason, it would be imprudent for this court to exercise its inherent power outside of statute or procedural rules to levy sanctions in the form of Kumagai’s attorneys’ fees,” he said.
