Court junks case vs NMC

The Superior Court has dismissed due to technicalities the fraud and breach of contract allegations filed against the Northern Marianas College by a former employee.

In a Nov. 22 order, Judge Robert C. Naraja said his decision was grounded on procedural concerns, not the actual merits of the case. “Therefore, nothing in this order should be interpreted to mean that there was, or was not, merit to any of the plaintiff’s allegations,” he stressed.

The allegations filed by Richard U. Hofschneider stemmed from the termination of his employment with NMC on June 15, 1998. Hofschneider worked as liaison for the NMC Tinian Satellite campus from Sept. 24, 1989 until he took a sabbatical leave in 1993.

He returned to the college in 1996 as affirmative action officer/instructor and was later promoted to the position of legal counsel.

However, in June 1998, Hofschneider met with then NMC president Agnes McPhetres to discuss his intention to withdraw his retirement contributions. To do so, he must resign from NMC and then be reinstated to his employment status after two weeks of separation from the government.

McPhetres allegedly told him that he could not come back to work once he resigned because the NMC Board of Regents had adopted a policy to freeze all new hiring and had decided to eliminate his position.

Hofschneider said he was forced to resign from the college amid moves by the House Committee on Health, Education and Welfare, then led by his cousin Rep. Heinz Hofschneider, to conduct an oversight hearing on the alleged mismanagement of NMC.

In a complaint he submitted on June 15, 2004, Hofschneider asked the court to reinstate him to his original position and be granted all benefits, including back wages and other entitlements.

He also urged the court to take various actions against the defendants: then acting NMC president Antonio Deleon Guerrero, NMC chair Kimberlyn King-Hinds, former president Joaquin Sablan, former president Agnes McPhetres, former vice president for administration Felicitas Abraham, former human resources director Kohne Ramon, and former chair Fermin Atalig.

Last July 6, attorney F. Matthew Smith, legal counsel for the defendants, asked the court to dismiss the case due to certain technicalities.

Smith said the defendants were not properly served the summons and complaint.

He also argued that the complaint must be dismissed because it was filed too late, based on the six-year statute of limitations. He noted that Hofschneider wrote a letter to NMC on June 15, 1998 submitting his resignation. However, he waited until June 15, 2004 to file his complaint.

“Therefore his complaint was filed six years and one day after his cause of action arose. Because Hofschneider did not file his complaint within the six-year period his claims are barred,” Smith said.

In his order, Judge Naraja agreed there is genuine issue with the two points raised by Smith. He added that the main reason he was dismissing the case was Hofschneider’s failure to appear at either of the two hearings—on Oct. 13 and on Nov. 17—that the court scheduled to hear the motion to dismiss.

“In light of the fact that the plaintiff may have failed to meet the six-year statute of limitations, may have failed to effect proper service on one or more of the defendants, and is now no longer even showing up for his scheduled hearings, the court finds that the plaintiff is not diligently prosecuting this matter,” Naraja said. “Therefore the court believes it is in the interest of justice to dismiss this case.”