Robert Myers said Public Law 17-1, according to a recent court ruling, allows employees to bring direct action against their employers, on both insurance bonds, as well as any administrative award on judgment.
“[But] the new law expressly limits what a foreign national worker can seek in the court compared to what DOL can seek if they brought the suit in the court. Under 3 CMC Section 4950(a), the foreign national worker is limited to what it says a worker can go after. Note that there is no liquidated damages language there despite the law saying that liquidated damages shall be awarded and are awarded in most administration orders. Furthermore, most administrative orders also include in them other relief and sanctions, which arguably could not be sought by the worker, but can be via DOL,” Myers said in an e-mail to the Variety.
Myers is representing Bienvenida Camacho in the lawsuit filed against her in Superior Court by three former waitresses who want to collect back wages as ordered by Labor.
A settlement has since been reached with Felipe SN. Camacho, the co-defendant of Bienvenida C. Camacho, and a stipulated dismissal was approved by the court.
The Camachos were former owners of Benny’s Place in Garapan.
The plaintiffs — Maritess A. Aurelio, Ronna D. Santo Domingo and Rosalima C. Oliva — were represented by Joshua Berger.
They sued the Camachos in Superior Court to seek over $180,000 in damages that they failed to collect three years ago after the Department of Labor ruled in their favor.
Superior Court Associate Judge David A. Wiseman granted the cross motion for summary judgment filed by the plaintiffs and denied the motion to dismiss filed by Bienvenida Camacho.
Myers said when he took the case, “the law was clearly that Labor was the only authority to enforce administrative orders (i.e., awards for unpaid wages, overtime, liquidated damages, etc.) under the Nonresident Workers Act, or NWA, and its accompanying rules and regulations.”
He added, “Although P.L. 15-108 and its accompanying rules and regulations were already out, the administrative order in Camacho’s case was issued when the NWA applied so DOL was required to hold an enforcement proceeding over the administrative order to see how the employer (or bonding company if applicable) would satisfy the order. And if that didn’t work out, then the law required DOL to seek such enforcement in the courts.”
In Bienvenida Camacho’s case, Myers said, “neither DOL nor the plaintiffs sought the first enforcement route in DOL. Thus, when Camacho asked me to represent her in her case, I filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaint, since the law required either the plaintiffs or DOL to start at DOL and, if so, then proceed to the court.
But the fact was none of that happened. So the basis of my motion to dismiss was that, under the law as it existed when I filed the motion, the court lacked jurisdiction.”
“But after such filing, the law was changed in P.L. 17-1 making it possible for foreign national workers with administrative orders to seek a direct action in the court for the enforcement of the order. DOL has the option of doing it themselves for a foreign national worker, but they don’t have to. The new law also got rid of the two cases which had held that DOL was the only one with authority to enforce an order against bonding companies and or employers. Note that the new law was made to apply retroactively as well,” Myers said.
