The James R. Browning U.S. Court of Appeals Building, home of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is pictured in San Francisco, California, Feb. 7, 2017.
THE federal court will hold a case management conference on August 21 at 3 p.m. in the continuing lawsuit filed by a Korean businessman against American Memorial Park over an ankle injury that required medical attention.
In December 2021, Yoon Suk Chang sued the park for negligence, claiming financial losses due to the injury, and is asking the court to award him $1 million in damages.
American Memorial Park is controlled, operated, supervised, managed, and maintained by the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The federal park, represented by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Districts of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands, denies any liability for the injury sustained by the businessman.
In response to the lawsuit, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mikel Schwab said the case should be dismissed because the park is not liable for the acts or omissions of independent contractors.
Schwab also argued that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction over claims involving discretionary actions by federal employees — actions guided by policies related to public access, historic and natural resource preservation, and conservation.
He further stated that “the plaintiff’s alleged injuries and damages were caused solely and proximately by the acts or omissions of other parties, persons, or entities, or their servants, agents, representatives, and employees, none of whom are agencies or employees of the United States for whom the United States has any liability pursuant to the Federal Tort Claims Act.”
In February 2024, Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona granted the federal government’s request and dismissed the lawsuit.
She found that the superintendent and employees’ decisions regarding maintenance of the grassy areas at AMP were subject to policy analysis.
“The decisions and policy tradeoffs that go into allowing public access to the grassy areas in the National Park — and/or the absence of warning signs, possible access to vehicles, undiscovered holes or ground irregularities caused by visitors, maintenance crews, animals, or erosion — are subject to the discretionary decisions of the park’s superintendent and other federal employees,” she said.
“Therefore, because the discretionary function exception under the FTCA bars Chang’s negligence claim, this court does not have subject matter jurisdiction,” she added.
Chang, represented by attorney Bruce Berline, appealed the decision in March 2024.
In a ruling issued on June 9, 2025, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the district court’s dismissal of Chang’s complaint and remanded the case for further proceedings.
Ninth Circuit Judges Daniel A. Bress and Ana de Alba held that “the discretionary function exception did not preclude a lawsuit by a man who was injured when his foot was caught in a large divot in a regularly maintained recreational grass field at a national park in Saipan, because the routine maintenance of a grassy lawn did not involve government employees balancing public policy considerations.”
Dissenting, Judge Sidney R. Thomas said, “I respectfully disagree with the majority that the discretionary function exception does not apply. As the district court correctly concluded, ‘the standard to which the [park employees] choose to keep the grassy areas… necessarily required decisions based on public policy concerns.’ ”
According to the lawsuit, on Dec. 8, 2019, the plaintiff and his two sons visited the park and played in the grassy area adjacent to the amphitheater.
When his younger son began walking toward the parking lot, the plaintiff followed him in an effort to stop him.
As he stepped toward the lot, his foot went into a hole about one foot deep, causing him to fall violently to the ground and twist his ankle, the lawsuit stated.
“Following the fall, plaintiff did not go to the hospital, but applied ice and took aspirin,” the complaint said. “By Dec. 10, 2019, the pain was too intense, and he went to Brothers Oriental Medicine Clinic, which recommended an X-ray. Plaintiff then went to Pacific Medical Center, where he was X-rayed.”
Throughout January 2020, the pain in the plaintiff’s ankle persisted. He visited the Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. on several occasions and was ultimately referred to an orthopedic specialist on March 16, 2020.
The lawsuit added that a CHCC doctor recommended an MRI, but due to Covid-19, the hospital could not refer him to Guam, and Saipan had no MRI capability at the time.
With the pain persisting, the plaintiff traveled to Korea in early June for treatment. There, doctors diagnosed the problem via MRI.
On July 7, 2020, he underwent surgery in Korea, which included “debridement of the ankle and what is known as a Brostrom operation and subfibulare removal.”
“Plaintiff was hospitalized in Korea for five days and was unable to return to his family in Saipan until August, spending nearly three months in Korea for surgery preparation and post-operative recovery,” the lawsuit stated.
Before the accident, Chang was in the construction business on Saipan and had several projects pending when he was injured.
“Because his work required substantial physical activity, which he could no longer perform due to the ankle injury, and because he was away from Saipan for nearly three months, he suffered financial losses in his business,” the lawsuit said.
“Plaintiff was unable to earn income in 2020 because of his injury and was forced to leave Saipan for Spokane, Washington, alone and without his family, in an effort to find work that did not require the physical labor his construction business demanded,” the complaint added.
The plaintiff also claimed additional financial losses due to being unable to complete an apartment complex he was building, resulting in lost rental income in 2020 and 2021.
