ATTORNEY Aaron Halegua has accused former Imperial Pacific International LLC chairwoman Cui Li Jie of intentionally obstructing and preventing the federal court from obtaining her Electronically Stored Information or ESI in the lawsuit of seven construction workers who have alleged labor violations, including human trafficking.
Halegua wants the court to deny the request of Cui for a protective order regarding communications with her former counsel, Juan T. Lizama.
“Ms. Cui’s motion for a protective order must be denied. Initially, it is not clear precisely what communications or documents Ms. Cui is asserting are privileged — a problem that began at the July 20th deposition and persisted through the parties’ meet and confers,” Halegua said.
“Insofar as Ms. Cui’s motion concerns her declarations filed on the Electronic Case Files or ECF system, she provides no authority to support the assertion that these publicly disclosed documents somehow remain privileged. While the motion makes conclusory assertions about what Ms. Cui was and was not told, she provides no supporting declaration. As for the communications between Ms. Cui and Mr. Lizama already filed on the ECF system, the motion utterly fails to address the fact that it was Ms. Cui, not Mr. Lizama, who waived the attorney-client privilege because she filed her emails with Mr. Lizama on the ECF system on multiple occasions, including after being warned by the court about potential waiver of the attorney-client privilege.”
Cui is a third-party witness in the lawsuit of the 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 who are represented by Halegua and attorney Bruce Berline.
The plaintiffs are Tianming Wang, Dong Han, Yongjun Meng, Liangcai Sun, Youli Wang, Qingchun Xu, and Duxin Yan.
Attorney Juan T. Lizama previously represented Cui, but she told the court that she was not satisfied with his representation.
Recently, IPI announced Cui’s resignation as board chair and executive director of the company.
Since then, the law firm of attorney David Lujan of Guam, Lujan & Wolff, has made an appearance on behalf of Cui in the proceedings.
Lujan, for his part, has filed a protective order, objecting to the use of communications with Lizama.
In a previous order, Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona of the District Court for the NMI entered a $5.4 million default judgment in favor of the plaintiffs against IPI.
IPI has requested the court to reconsider its decision.
The District Court for the NMI
Lijie Cui
