Felipe Atalig
JUDGE Pro Tempore Dana A. Gutierrez on Monday set a status conference for Aug. 12, 2024, regarding Felipe Q. Atalig’s lawsuit against the Department of Public Works.
Atalig, 83, is DPW’s former public information officer who sued the department for terminating him in March 2018 for sexual harassment, which he denied. He said he was just demonstrating a point when he put his hand into a male engineer’s pocket during an argument.
In January 2023, then-Associate Judge Wesley M. Bogdan denied DPW’s motion to dismiss Atalig’s petition for judicial review of the department’s action. The judge retired in December 2023.
On May 21, 2024, CNMI Supreme Court Chief Justice Alexandro C. Castro appointed Gutierrez, a Guam judge, as judge pro tempore in Atalig’s lawsuit.
Castro stated that Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert C. Naraja had informed the CNMI Supreme Court that the judges on the Superior Court have recused themselves from Atalig’s lawsuit.
In her order, Judge Gutierrez set a status conference for Aug. 12, 2024, at 10 a.m., via Zoom. All parties are ordered to appear, she said, adding that “the Court shall update the parties on the status of the Court’s review of the case.”
In an interview, Atalig, who is representing himself, said he remains hopeful about the outcome of his lawsuit.
In April 2024, he said DPW made a settlement offer amounting to $80,000, which he turned down, saying he was denied administrative leave for six years and was owed over $350,000.
Atalig is a former member of the Marianas District Legislature and the Congress of Micronesia, and was a delegate to the NMI’s first constitutional convention in 1976.
