FORMER Imperial Pacific International chair Lijie Cui’s opposition is irrelevant to the issues raised in the second attorney’s fee petition, attorney Aaron Halegua told the federal court.
He is asking the federal court to grant the second fee petition, award additional fee for the reply, and order Cui to make a payment within seven days upon issuance of the order, “because the opposition barely addresses the second fee petition, and raises no relevant defense or opposition.”
On Sept. 14, 2021, the plaintiffs, who are represented by Halegua, filed a second petition for fees against Cui pursuant to the contempt order’s awarding of fees and costs to plaintiffs.
Halegua requested $125,023.20 in attorneys’ fees and $5,465.89 in costs as a reasonable award for the plaintiffs’ efforts in compelling Cui to comply with the court’s orders.
Cui, through her attorney, David Lujan, opposed the second fee petition and characterized the request as a “counterfeit lawsuit.”
Lujan asked, “Since there is no lawsuit against the three original defendants pending in this court, has Ms. Cui been elevated to a defendant in order that plaintiffs can continue demanding discovery against her, a third-party witness?”
He added, “What is the discovery for at this point in time? It cannot be against IPI since the court has lost jurisdiction of that case. How many times are plaintiffs legally authorized to conduct discovery, and file an application for an Order to Show Cause against Ms. Cui, or, for that matter against Mr. How Yo Chi (former IPI chair interpreter), or any person associated with Ms. Cui? Since Ms. Cui is not a defendant, is she entitled to request for a jury trial, because the court has warned her in the two [Orders to Show Cause] it has issued against her, that the court could order her to be incarcerated? Has Ms. Cui committed a crime that requires incarceration? If Ms. Cui has committed a crime punishable by imprisonment, then shouldn’t a criminal case be brought against her so she can request for a jury trial, as opposed to a bench trial?”
In response, Halegua said the arguments in Ms. Cui’s opposition are irrelevant to the issues raised in the second fee petition.
He said the first section or six pages of the 11-page opposition discusses the court’s prior contempt finding stemming from Cui avoiding service of a subpoena and providing false testimony at her Feb. 5, 2021 deposition.
He added that the second section “concerns plaintiffs’ efforts to obtain discovery from How Yo Chi (who has resisted being deposed for more than two months because he allegedly cannot find an attorney) and Ms. Cui’s prediction that plaintiffs plan to file an order to show cause against Mr. Chi.”
According to Halegua, “Neither the prior contempt finding nor the possibility of a future motion against Mr. Chi are relevant to the issues in the second fee petition — namely, the reasonable fees and costs incurred by plaintiffs in pursuing Ms. Cui’s compliance with the preservation order and related orders.”
Halegua said the third section of Cui’s opposition, “which does concern the second fee petition, only makes the conclusory statement that ‘these proceedings never had a legal basis supporting plaintiffs’ position.’ While not entirely clear what Ms. Cui means by ‘these proceedings,’ she appears to be arguing that the court’s issuance of the preservation order lacked a ‘legal basis.’ This argument may have been relevant when plaintiffs first moved for an order requiring Ms. Cui to preserve evidence, or perhaps even when plaintiffs requested the court to issue an order to show cause. But that time has long [passed]. This (wholly unpersuasive) argument is not relevant to the second fee petition.”
Halegua said, “The fact that Ms. Cui continues to argue the invalidity of the initial preservation order underscores that she still has not accepted that she must comply with its terms — an attitude that is (unfortunately) totally consistent with her pattern of disobeying this court’s directives.”
On Aug. 26, 2021 Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona of the District Court for the NMI found Cui in contempt of court, again, for failing to comply with a previous preservation order in the lawsuit of seven construction workers alleging labor violations, including human trafficking.
Previously, the federal court entered a $5.4 million default judgment in favor of the plaintiffs against IPI.
The judgment remains unsatisfied, and this is the reason why all ESI data held by the former IPI chair remain relevant to the proceedings, the court earlier said.
Cui is a third-party witness in the lawsuit of seven construction workers against IPI and its former contractor and subcontractor, MCC International and Gold Mantis Construction Decoration, both of which have already settled with the plaintiffs: Tianming Wang, Dong Han, Yongjun Meng, Liangcai Sun, Youli Wang, Qingchun Xu, and Duxin Yan.
Representing them are attorneys Bruce Berline and Halegua.
Aaron Halegua
