Negotiations start to resolve Malite estate’s $3.45M claim

Settlement negotiations between the government and the Malite estate have begun in efforts to end the controversial case that involves a dispute over the release of some $3.45 million in land compensation to the Malite estate’s heirs.

Attorneys representing the parties in the case—Malite estate administrator Jesus Tudela; the Attorney General’s Office; the Marianas Public Lands Authority, its board members, and commissioner Edward DeLeon Guerrero—convened yesterday at the Superior Court before Judge Juan T. Lizama.

Malite estate attorney Antonio Atalig said the government initiated the settlement process by making an offer. He refused to disclose the amount being offered by the government.

“They [AGO attorneys] are the ones who offered the settlement,” Atalig said. “We’re making progress, but I prefer not to discuss any details.”

Atalig did not comment when asked if the settlement offer was about $1-2 million. He did not reveal if he made a counter-offer and its amount, if any. “Both sides are trying to work it out,” he said.

Attorney General Pamela Brown filed the Malite lawsuit sometime in December 2004 to prevent the drawdown of some $3.45 million in land compensation being claimed by the estate from the government’s land compensation fund. The complaint named the estate’s administrator, the MPLA, its board members and commissioner as defendants.

The MPLA board had approved the payment of $3.45 million to the Malite estate. Brown had claimed that there were circumstances surrounding the transaction that create a “strong appearance of ethical impropriety and conflicts of interest.”

Brown’s attorneys questioned the amount of $3.45 million, approximately 1,000 times than the compensation determined in a 1978 Trust Territory court order, which they claimed to be a final judgment in which no appeal was taken.

The Trust Territory court had set the compensation amount at $3,682, for the condemnation of a parcel of land that now forms part of the Marianas High School. The Commonwealth government got the title to the land as a result of the condemnation. The Malite heirs, however, said they did not get a cent from the government.

The AGO is now saying that, even if the Trust Territory court judgment was not satisfied, the amount of $3.45 million does not conform to valuation provisions of the law, adding that valuation of condemned land should be determined at the time of the taking of the property by the CNMI government.

The AGO had contended that conflicts of interests taint the MPLA board’s approval of the $3.45 million claim, saying that lawyer Atalig is brother to MPLA board member Benita Atalig-Manglona. Atalig’s brother, the late ex-Supreme Court Justice Pedro Atalig, was a former MPLA board member. Atalig’s office manager, Juan Demapan, is brother of MPLA chair Ana Demapan-Castro.

The estate and the MPLA defendants had questioned Brown’s legitimacy as attorney general and her authority to initiate the court action.

After failing to have the lawsuit dismissed, the estate elevated the matter before the Supreme Court and asked the appellate court to enforce the decision of the MPLA to pay some $3.45 million to the estate. The petition, which seeks the reversal of the Superior Court ruling that denied dismissal of the suit, remains pending for determination before the High Court.