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Guam judge’s designation to handle Fund lawsuit questioned
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Posted on Dec 22 2011
Attorney Bruce Jorgensen is questioning the designation of U.S. District Court for Guam Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood to handle Sapuro Rayphand’s court action to remove the Retirement Fund’s lawsuit from the Superior Court to the U.S. District Court for the NMI.
Jorgensen, as counsel for Rayphand, said he learned on Nov. 19, 2011, that Superior Court associate judge Joseph James N. Camacho, spouse of Fund counsel Viola Alepuyo, had been sworn in as a judge, with Guam attorney Philip J. Tydingco serving as presenter at the investiture ceremony.
In Rayphand’s errata filed in federal court, Jorgensen said that, on Dec. 7, 2011, he was apprised that Mr. Tydingco and Judge Tydingco-Gatewood are siblings.
Jorgensen attached as one of the exhibits Mr. Tydingco’s statement to the media that over the past eight or nine years “our families have remained close friends.”
This recent knowledge in context of other circumstances, Jorgensen said, “give rise to heightened reservations on [my] part…respecting Judge Tydingco-Gatewood’s designation here.”
The lawyer noted that U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona had recused herself from the case.
In that order, Manglona cited that because her husband, CNMI Supreme Court associate justice John A. Manglona, is a member of the Fund, she must disqualify herself from participating in the matter.
Last month, Tydingco-Gatewood found improper Rayphand’s removal of the Fund’s lawsuit against the Fitial administration from the Superior Court.
Tydingco-Gatewood remanded the Fund’s lawsuit to the Superior Court and ordered Rayphand to pay attorney’s fees and costs to the Fund.
In her order, the judge noted that much of Rayphand’s argument for intervention is nonsensical and unrelated to the issues.
