CHIEF Judge Ramona V. Manglona of the District Court for the NMI has ordered Imperial Pacific International LLC chairwoman Cui Li Jie to pay attorneys’ fees and costs in the amount of $33,890.10 no later than March 5.
In her order on Friday, Judge Manglona said: “After carefully considering the plaintiffs’ counsels’ declarations and billing statements, the court finds that the hours that plaintiffs’ attorneys spent on preparing for and attending the Jan. 26 deposition, including preparing and discussing exhibits and questions; researching, reviewing, editing, and drafting the motion for an Order to Show Cause and the proposed order; discussing service of process of the OSC; preparing for and attending the Feb. 5 deposition; reviewing the deposition transcript; researching, editing, and drafting the response to the OSC; and preparing for the OSC hearing are all reasonable.”
She said the hours spent on reviewing the deposition and reviewing the video clips in preparation for the Order to Show Cause or OSC hearing are also reasonable given the need to review for redactions.
The judge likewise finds the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ hours reasonable in light of the plaintiffs’ billing judgment to not seek fees for legal research performed by law student intern Robert Vinson, regarding holding third-party witnesses in contempt.
The judge noted that the IPI chairwoman also failed to file any opposition, “therefore failing to meet her burden of rebuttal.”
Attorneys Aaron Halegua and Bruce Berline are the lawyers of the seven plaintiffs, the construction workers who sued IPI and its former contractor and subcontractor, MCC International and Gold Mantis, over allegations of labor violations and human trafficking.
The plaintiffs have already reached a settlement agreement with MCC International and Gold Mantis.
Halegua recently petitioned the federal court to award the plaintiffs a total amount of $34,474 in attorneys’ fees and costs to be paid personally by Cui.
A few hours
However, in reviewing the timesheets submitted, Judge Manglona said she decided to discount a few hours.
Specifically, the judge found that any efforts Halegua spent on Jan. 27, 2021 Eastern Standard Time listening to the United States Department of Labor contempt hearing against IPI and Cui should not be billed, “as it is an entirely unrelated case and not relevant to this contempt proceeding,” the judge said as she discounted Halegua’s 0.88 hour spent to “Listen to USDOL contempt hearing against IPI, Cui.”
The judge further reduced some entry hours on Halegua’s timesheets that she deemed “clerical work and duplicative work.”
But she found the total hours of 85.96 for the total amount of $32,319 reasonable.
The judge also approved the amount of $1,571.10 for reimbursement costs.
Last week Judge Manglona found IPI chairwoman Cui Li Jie in contempt of court for not complying with the subpoena served upon her.
The judge also found IPI, IPI Holdings Ltd. and IPI chairwoman Cui Li Jie in contempt of court for violating the consent judgment it signed with the U.S. Department of Labor, and for not paying IPI’s current employees for over two months.
IPI chairwoman Cui Li Jie, center, and her staff leave the federal court building Tuesday after a hearing.
Photo by Bryan Manabat
