Manglona approves $2.4M judgment in Kim’s suit

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona has approved the jury’s judgment holding attorney Ramon K. Quichocho, his wife Frances, his law firm, and their company Karissa LLC liable to pay $2.4 million in damages to businesswoman Jung Ja Kim, who sued them for racketeering and other claims.
Manglona also approved the jury’s verdict that found Kim liable to pay Ramon Quichocho and his law firm $48,221.67 in legal fees.

The judge said under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the court “must promptly approve the form of the judgment…when…the jury returns a special verdict….”

She said approval requires examining the consistency of the special verdict itself.

After approval, Manglona said, the clerk “must promptly enter” judgment.

In this case, Manglona said all aspects of the verdict, save potentially one, are consistent and support findings of liability.

She noted that one potentially troublesome aspect is the conversion claim for Latte Stone LLC. The verdict form itself, the judge said, inadvertently omitted a place for the jury to formally render its verdict on this claim.

It is this conversion claim in which the jurors awarded Kim $1,551,828.

“But this poses no bar,” said Manglona, explaining that the verdict form need only “give the instructions and explanations necessary to enable the jury to make its findings,” and the answered verdict form need only “conclusively dispose of the issues submitted to the jury.”

Manglona said both are satisfied here.

She said the jury instructions explained how to analyze the conversion claim, which alleged that both Latte Stone and Tan Dingo LLC were converted.

Manglona said the verdict form then reiterated that this conversion claim is for both Tan Dingo and Latte Stone.

Manglona said for whatever reason, the verdict form only included a place for entering verdict on the conversion of Tan Dingo, while only directing the jurors to a non-existent section “B. Latte Stone.”

“But this does not change the fact that the jurors received sufficient instructions and explanations necessary to render its verdict,” the judge said.

The jury, Manglona said, also found that Latte Stone was converted.

“It rendered its verdict in the only place it could: in the verdict form’s conclusion, by awarding damages on the Latte Stone conversion claim,” she said.

Manglona added that by awarding damages, the jury must have first found defendants liable on the claim, otherwise they would have awarded none.

The nine jurors reached the unanimous verdict during their sixth day of deliberations on March 28. Kim prevailed in her eight claims and was awarded a total of $2,411,719.09.

The Quichochos prevailed only on one (legal fees) of their five counter-claims against Kim.

The trial began on Feb. 3.