Jianhua Huang, Yu Lai Wang, Jia Mei Zhang, Zheng Zia He, Bao Weihong, Si Qin Feng, Lian Hua Gu, and Lei Chen filed the complaint against Royal Crown Insurance Corp., and Zhen Hua Guo, Chun Youn Fan, Ren Zhou against Oceania Insurance Corp.
Associate Judge Perry B. Inos stated in his Feb. 5 order that the plaintiffs in these separate cases entered into nonresident worker contracts with employers in the CNMI.
Under the CNMI Nonresident Workers Act, the employers delivered labor bonds issued by the defendants to the director of the Division of Labor. These labor bonds named the Department of Labor as the obligee on the bonds.
After the employers breached their employment contracts with the plaintiffs, the plaintiffs all filed labor complaints with Labor which led to administrative hearings.
At the hearings, the hearing officer separately awarded each plaintiff specified back wages and other relief against their employers.
Labor, however, did not institute separate proceedings against the defendants, though they were served with a notice of claim concerning the plaintiffs’ awards.
The court stated that the defendants have made no payments on the labor bonds and Labor has not started an action to enforce any of its claims on the bonds.
In their attempt to recover the awards granted to them by Labor against their employers, the plaintiffs have filed their complaints in the small claims division of the Superior Court.
In its analysis, the court said the primary reason the plaintiffs were not able to recover the awards granted to them by Labor is because the department has not attempted to enforce the defendant’s obligations under the labor bonds.
The court said that although there were administrative proceedings that preceded these actions, the plaintiffs have not filed petitions for judicial review or for mandamus to compel Labor to take action.
Inos said that in this case, the employers of the nonresident workers had delivered labor bonds issued by the defendants to the director of labor.
He said that when the law firm attempted to enforce labor bonds as a third-party beneficiary under common law principles of contract, the court ruled that Labor has exclusive jurisdiction over a nonresident worker attempting to collect on labor bonds issued.
“Although the plaintiffs might make persuasive arguments concerning their rights to bring these actions as third-party beneficiaries under common law practices, these arguments would be irrelevant due to the fact that [Labor] has exclusive extensive statutory and regulatory scheme regarding the enforcement of these bonds,” the court ruling stated.
