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Court denies land claim that was filed 30 years late
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Posted on Jun 23 2004
The CNMI Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision denying the claim of a woman over two parcels of land in Dandan, saying the filing of the claim was 30 years late.
The High Court effectively affirmed the government’s ownership of the lots, which have been administered by the Marianas Public Lands Authority and its predecessor agencies.
The court rendered the decision in an appeal filed by Magdalena A. Flores on the trial court’s judgment in favor of the CNMI government and MPLA’s predecessor, the Division of Public Lands.
Flores had sought judicial declaration of ownership of lots 1684 and 1697 and had asked the Superior Court to award her damages for alleged trespass and unlawful use of property.
Flores and relatives filed the suit to claim the lots as heirs of Joaquin Cabrera Arriola, who was given title to the lots by the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands in 1953. An amended determination of the ownership a year later, however, declared that Arriola did not own the lots.
Arriola contested the determination and claimed two separate lands, lots 1685 and 1696. The government granted Arriola ownership of the two lots, one of which he exchanged for a government land. In the exchange document, Arriola acknowledged the government’s ownership of lot 1684.
The administrative hearing also concluded in 1954 that lots 1684 and 1697 did not belong to Arriola, finding that Japanese firm N.K.K. previously owned the properties during Saipan’s Japanese era. It ruled that the government became the owners of the lots because the titles escheated in the Trust Territory government when the U.S. government became administrator of the islands.
The court said Flores’ suit was filed by statutorily imposed deadline for filing a cause of action, which should be made 20 years from the time such cause of action accrued.
“Here, if there ever was a cause of action, it accrued in 1955 when the second title determination became final. Flores, then, is 30 years too late in bringing this case,” the Supreme Court said.
