‘Fund will settle only if Jorgensen’s clients offer realistic demands’

The NMI Retirement Fund and its board of trustees want to resolve the lawsuit filed by two unnamed retirees provided that their demands are realistic, according to the Fund and its board counsel, Braddock J. Huesman.

Huesman said the Fund and its board cannot enter into settlement negotiations with the unnamed retirees until they have made a realistic demand that addresses the Fund’s needs.

“It is useless to agree to participate in a settlement procedure if the demand is a receivership or if the demand is a rehash of the previous demand, paying Mr. [Bruce] Jorgensen $400 an hour to participate in a process that he simultaneously claims violates his clients’ due process rights,” said Huesman in the Fund and its board’s response to the federal court’s mediation proposal.

Jorgensen, on behalf of two unnamed retirees, filed the lawsuit against Gov. Benigno R. Fitial and the Fund over alleged non-payment of their retirement benefits.

Put simply, Huesman said, the party at fault is the CNMI government and the Fund must insist on that being the focus of any mediation.

At the end of a telephonic conference call on March 29, U.S. District Court for the NMI designated judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood proposed a mediation or settlement discussion in the case.

On Thursday, Fitial and the CNMI government, through the Office of the Attorney General, notified the court that they are not interested in the mediation.

Gilbert Birnbrich, chief of the Office of the Attorney General’s Civil Division, said in a statement that the government does not believe mediation is appropriate because the plaintiffs’ claims have not merit.

In the Fund and its board’s response to the mediation proposal, Huesman said the plaintiffs’ suit places the Fund on the same “side” as its judgment debtor, the CNMI government.

Moreover, Huesman said, the CNMI government continues to demonstrate that it cannot or will not address the Fund’s catastrophic funding situation.

Simultaneously, the lawyer said, the plaintiffs seek to place the Fund under a receivership.

“The Fund.submit[s] that receivership, federal or otherwise, is a wholly inappropriate remedy for the Fund’s condition because the authority of a receiver is defined by the entity or entities in the receivership,” Huesman said.

If the court orders the parties to settle, Huesman said that the Fund would object to any settlement judge that Jorgensen claims to have either personally contacted or one that he has specifically requested to act as a receiver.

Huesman said his clients, however, are open to any suggestions the court would offer.