7 workers say fed court should condemn IPI’s ’delaying tactic’

The seven workers who are suing Imperial Pacific (CNMI) LLC and its contractor and subcontractor over alleged injuries they suffered in accidents at the worksite of IPI’s casino/resort project in Garapan argue that the federal court must condemn IPI’s failure to respond to their requests to produce some records or documents.

The seven plaintiffs, through counsels Aaron Halegua and Bruce Berline, asked the U.S. District Court for the NMI to deny IPI’s motion for protective order that seeks to prevent all discovery in their lawsuit pending the resolution of IPI’s motion to stay or suspend the proceedings in this case.

The plaintiffs also asked the court to grant their motion to compel IPI to respond to their discovery requests and pay them attorneys’ fees.

In its motion for a protective order, IPI, through counsel Phillip Tydingco, said that a protective order in necessary in this case since allowing discovery to proceed in light of IPI’s motion to stay defeats or undermines the purpose and intent of the mandatory stay.

This would cause IPI to “suffer annoyance, oppression as well as the deprivation of certain protections and rights associated with criminal proceedings,” Tydingco said.

In their opposition to IPI’s motion Tuesday last week, Halegua and Berline said that IPI cites no relevant legal authority in its persistent effort to avoid producing even a single document or answering a single interrogatory.

They pointed out that IPI asked the court for a protective order to stay all discovery only last Nov. 21, months after being served with the plaintiffs’ discovery requests and just four days prior to the date on which it had agreed to respond to those requests.

Halegua and Berline said that IPI unpersuasively argues that “good cause” exists for the court to halt all discovery of any form because of, one week earlier, IPI filed a second motion for a stay pursuant to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act.

The lawyers said IPI offers no specific facts or examples of the harm that will result if a protective order is not granted—only conclusory statements and speculation.

Halegua and Berline pointed out that IPI’s co-defendants have already produced thousands of pages of discovery and initial interrogatory answers, yet IPI has not produced a single document or interrogatory answer.

Instead, Halegua and Berline said, IPI has persisted in its objections to service and to the format of plaintiffs’ interrogatories, even in the face of legal authority to the contrary.

The lawyers said IPI’s motion for a protective order must be rejected, describing it as “clearly just one more tactic to delay discovery.”

The plaintiffs—Tianming Wang, Dong Han, Yongjun Meng, Liangcai Sun, Youli Wang, Quingchun Xu, and Xiyang Du—are suing IPI, MCC, and MCC’s subcontractor, Gold Mantis Construction Decoration (CNMI) LLC.

The plaintiffs, who are all Chinese nationals, are suing the defendants for alleged forced labor in violation of the Trafficking Victims Protection Re-authorization Act, forced labor in violation of the CNMI Anti-Trafficking Act, negligence, and liability for employees of subcontractor.

The workers alleged, among other things, that they were forced to work long hours for below minimum wage under extremely dangerous conditions at the casino-resort worksite.

In its response to the lawsuit, IPI, through Tydingco, said any wage claims by the plaintiffs are barred because they voluntarily illegally entered the CNMI to work.