The complaint accused CNMI officials of collusion and machinations which, the lawyers said, should warrant placing the Retirement Fund under a federal equity receivership.
Attorneys Bruce Jorgensen and Timothy R. Lord said an “utter insolvency” of the Retirement Fund is not necessary to compel the court to place the agency under a receivership.
“Contrary to defendants’ seeming preference, neither plaintiffs nor retirees, need wait for the Fund to wholly implode, or to find themselves penniless, lacking retirement or ancillary healthcare benefits, or homeless, before seeking appropriate redress in the remedial form the court is fully empowered to command,” the two said in their reply to the CNMI government’s opposition to the class action suit.
The two lawyers are asking the federal court to appoint a federal equity receiver for the Retirement Fund on grounds that all of its official are political appointees who have biases in making decisions on behalf of the thousands of government retirees whose survival depends on the pension agency.
The two are also challenging the constitutionality of CNMI Public Law 15-15, which legalized the suspension of government contributions to the pension agency for 15 months.
They said it appears that the Fund had authorized lawyers with the CNMI Attorney General’s Office to defend the governor and the pension agency in the pending case.
The Fund is an independent government agency governed by a board of trustees.
“Where-oh-where then, are those in-house and quasi-private lawyers being paid hundreds-of-thousands, by the Fund/board, ostensibly for the purpose of protecting and representing interests and property rights possessed by the Fund generally and plaintiffs’ and other retirees’ specifically?” Jorgensen and Lord’s briefs stated.
They said more retirees have indicated their willingness to join the class action but “most have predicated these requests on maintaining anonymity based on substantial and justified fears of reprisal and retaliation upon themselves, relatives and others.”
The Fund won by default its civil case against the CNMI government, and the local court ruled that the agency was owed $231 million as of April 2009 in unpaid employer’s contributions.
Jorgensen and Lord’s clients, however, fear that future decisions of the Fund’s officials and board will still put the pension agency in financial mess unless a federal receiver is appointed.
