The Board of Education and Commissioner Alfred Ada, through attorney Tiberius Mocanu, filed a motion for voluntary dismissal on Monday.
Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho on the same day granted the dismissal without prejudice, which means that PSS can refile the lawsuit in the future.
In his order, Judge Camacho noted that the lawyers of the Settlement Fund or SF, Joyce Tang and Nicole Torres-Ripple did not sign the motion for voluntary dismissal.
Mocanu said the SF supports the dismissal, but wants the claims against the SF in the lawsuit dismissed with prejudice to avoid incurring additional legal expenses should PSS refile the claims in the future.
In its previous motion to intervene, the SF asked the court to declare that: (1) PSS is not entitled to 25% of the Settlement Fund Revolving Fund and the amounts appropriated for the 25% benefit payments appropriated under 4 CMC § 1803 because these amounts are constitutionally and contractually obligated payments under Article III, Section 20(a) of the CNMI constitution and the settlement agreement; and (2) PSS’s actions in seeking payment from amounts appropriated to the settlement fund violate the settlement agreement.
Judge Camacho has. allowed the Settlement Fund to intervene in the lawsuit.
Regarding the Settlement Fund objection to dismissal without prejudice, the judge ordered the SF to file a written opposition to the PSS motion for voluntary dismissal by Nov. 22. PSS’s reply is due on Dec. 7.
“The parties should provide legal authority for their position and if necessary be prepared to call witness to support any factual allegations,” the judge said. He scheduled the hearing for Dec. 15 at 1:30 p.m.
In March 2020, the Board of Education voted 3-2 to authorize PSS to sue the governor and the Finance secretary for “inaccurate allotments” made to the Public School System in fiscal year 2020 “in violation of the CNMI Constitution.”
Under the Constitution, PSS is guaranteed an annual budget of not less than 25% of the general revenues of the CNMI.
But according to the Office of the Attorney General, which represented the governor and the Finance secretary in the lawsuit, the Commonwealth “denies any allegation or implication that PSS has not received its guaranteed budgetary appropriation.”
PSS was allotted 25.3% of the total local revenue and resources available for appropriation for Commonwealth government activities in FY 2020, the AG’s office said.
On Oct. 20, 2020, BOE member Phillip Mendiola-Long of Tinian resigned. He was one of the three BOE members in favor of suing the government.
On Oct. 30, 2020, his successor, Antonio L. Borja, was sworn in.
Mendiola-Long and Borja are both appointees of the governor who had to fill the Tinian seat because there were no Tinian BOE candidates in the 2018 elections.
