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Fitial, Inos join Fund’s motion to remand lawsuit to Superior Court
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Posted on Sep 25 2011
Gov. Benigno R. Fitial and Lt. Gov. Eloy S. Inos have agreed with the NMI Retirement Fund that the Fund’s lawsuit against the CNMI government should be remanded to the Superior Court.
Fitial and Inos, in his capacity as then Finance secretary, through assistant attorney general Michael A. Stanker, filed on Friday in District Court a joinder in the Fund’s motion to remand.
Stanker did not present any argument on behalf of Fitial and Inos in the joinder. In a two-page document, Stanker only stated that Fital and Inos respectfully join in the Fund’s motion to remand.
Fund’s legal counsel Braddock J. Huesman, in a motion to remand, asserted that Commonwealth Retirement Association board member Sapuro Rayphand’s notice of removal is defective as CRA is not a defendant in this matter and thus cannot remove the case.
Huesman said even if CRA was considered a defendant for removal purposes, not all defendants have agreed to removal.
Huesman asked the U.S. District Court for the NMI to hold Rayphand and his counsel, Bruce Jorgensen, liable to pay the Fund’s attorneys’ fees in answering to their court action “that was completely devoid of merit.”
Rayphand, represented by Jorgensen, has notified the District Court for the NMI that he wants the Fund’s lawsuit against the CNMI government to be removed from the Superior Court and transferred to the federal court.
Jorgensen later filed a notice informing the District Court of his forthcoming submissions in support of consolidating Rayphand’s with the pending lawsuit filed by unnamed retirees against Fitial and other co-defendants.
Jorgensen also served as counsel for the unnamed retirees.
Rayphand stated that it has been more than two years now since Superior Court associate judge Kenneth L. Govendo rendered a $230-million judgment in the case yet there has been little, if any, meaningful steps toward enforcement of that judgment.
