“This lawsuit — we are not a party to this,” said Commonwealth Retirees Association vice chairman Ron Barrineau during their board meeting last week.
He said he wanted to clarify an issue that Rayphand and attorney Bruce Jorgensen were not acting on behalf of the board of CRA.
“This is not the board’s lawsuit. Secondly, the CRA board of directors does not have legal representation of any kind. Mr. Jorgensen is not our lawyer. We don’t have a lawyer. We haven’t retained anyone.”
CRA board secretary Oscar Camacho said, “I do recall the board…agreed to support the lawsuit in federal court.”
As for requesting to remove the lawsuit from the Superior Court and transferring it to the District Court of the Northern Mariana Islands, Camacho said, “there was no [board] action.”
He agreed that the board supports the suit in federal court; however, he said there was no board endorsement. “We have not endorsed it. We have not agreed to it.
Rayphand said he remembered he asked the board and he inquired for the minutes. He said he remembered it being discussed in the meetings.
Camacho said he searched the minutes but couldn’t find reference to the board agreeing to the transfer of the case from the local court to the U.S. court.
“We didn’t agree. There was no record,” he said.
Camacho said he thought Rayphand was acting pro se, on his own to which Rayphand agreed.
“If you look at the lawsuit, I am acting as a person and not as a corporation or member of the board,” he said.
Camacho said he recalled the board would support the federal lawsuit in court on two conditions. He said he recalled they would cast support if it is going to be a receivership, it should not be for the liquidation of the Fund but rather for the conservation or the preservation and for the mere collection of the judgment.
They also clarified there was no issue to Rayphand doing it on his own.
On removing the case to federal court, Rayphand said the CNMI government has been sitting on the judgment for the last two years and nothing has happened to the $231 million that was supposed to be paid out. “That money cannot be appropriated unless the Legislature comes out with an appropriation. So far, in the last two years, nothing happened.”
He said if they waited two or three more years, the money will be gone.
The reason for removing the case out of local courts, he said, is that the local courts do not have teeth — they cannot sell government property.
“Only the district court can do that. That’s the difference between the two,” he said.
He told his fellow board members of the CRA that they are desperate…to get the money before it is depleted. In order to prevent this, he said they have to find a way to at least get the money to the people who have been contributing the money for years.
Further on the removal Rayphand reasoned, “When we take it to the district court with removal, we don’t have a choice. It is automatic. Once we concurred, that this could be supported in the district court, we have no control over what happens, that will be up to the judge.”
Asked if anybody can request for the case’s removal, Rayphand said, “As a retiree, I have standing to sue. I have the right to do it just like everybody else because we are personally affected by the consequences of inaction — inaction on the part of the Legislature…they didn’t appropriate the money. Thus, we have to find a very quick remediation of this problem. I do not see that because there’s no money appropriated.”
He added that anybody who has standing has the right. He said it is similar to the derivative lawsuit law that any member of the Fund can sue.
During the board meeting last Thursday night, Rayphand agreed that he did make the request to remove the case pro se, on his own.
In an interview, Rayphand said the story that appeared in the paper was totally one sided, and that it took the attorney general’s point of view without checking the facts.
Journalists, he added, have the moral obligation to check all sides to clarify misunderstanding.
Rayphand, who was a lawyer on Chuuk from 1980 to 1990, said, “I feel I have standing because I am a retiree just like everyone of us.”
He also said being a lawyer in Chuuk is irrelevant to the case as he is not practicing in the CNMI and he does not wish to do that.
He said he asked Jorgensen to do it when no lawyer stepped forward to do it.
“When we talked about lawyers representing us, I suggested Jorgensen because he is away, he is not local and he is not affected by local politics.”
Using an analogy, Rayphand said, “Anybody who is away from the forest will see the forest; anybody who is close to one tree will see nothing but the tree and not the forest.”
He added that time is of the essence. “We got to do something.”
He said he filed the request for transfer because he was disappointed and they could not wait too long until the money is gone. He also questioned the objectivity in the local courts as judges were appointed by the governor.
“How can you make a judgment as a judge and be a jury at the same time. Where is the objectivity — it is not there.”
He also said if the case were to be taken to the district court, they would have to ask District Court Judge Ramona Manglona to recuse herself. “We may have to ask Mona or whoever else that would appear to be in conflict to recuse themselves and bring in somebody whose objective enough so they could see the forest and not the tree.”
Last week, Manglona ordered the federal clerk of court to refer this matter “immediately” to Chief Judge Alex Kozinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for reassignment to another judge.
Asked by Variety what he is expecting to get out of moving the case to federal court, Rayphand said, “Whatever is fair, legal, and equitable. That will be up to the judge. I cannot speak on behalf of the judge.”
