Treasurer Malemo Tausaga assured senators that there’s funding to pay court settlements for lawsuits involving the American Samoa Government. All the administration needs is the spending authority.
Malemo and Deputy Treasurer Roy Hall Jr. were testifying on an appropriations bill of $278,000 by the administration to cover the court settlements.
According to the Treasurer, $500,000 was included in a supplemental appropriations bill using unexpended unobligated funds from Fiscal Year 2021 to pay the court settlements.
The money he was referring to was part of a $7.4 million supplemental bill that the Fono approved in the last session.
KHJ News points out that the funding he was referring to was described in the supplemental bill as $500,000 to the Attorney General’s Office to pay off island counsel involved in active litigation involving ASG.
Senator Magalei Logovii pointed out that the bill before the Senate explicitly states that the funding is coming from Fiscal Year 2023 unobligated, unexpended funds, which differs with the Treasurer’s testimony. He said, they should remove the reference to FY2023 from the bill if the funding is from FY2021.
Deputy Attorney General Hall gave background on the court settlements which are being paid with the $278,000 appropriations.
Simeonica Tuiteleleapaga sued ASG for $200,000 in a discrimination law suit stemming from actions by her, then boss, the late Director of Human and Social Services Taeaoafua Meki Solomona. The plaintiff was represented by the US Department of Justice and ASG negotiated a settlement of $125,000.
Mona and Nicholas King sued for wrongful diagnosis of Mrs. King by the LBJ Hospital. ASG negotiated a settlement of $115,000 down from $400,000 that the couple sought. The balance for ASG to pay to the Kings is $90,000.
Also included is payments of $17,000 each to four fishing boat owners whose boats were rendered useless after they were painted with an inferior coating at the ASG shipyard that put holes in their vessels. The four are Lolesio Smith, Maatulimanu Maea, Simi Paepae and Togotogo Sotoa.
The final payment in the bill is $20,000 for Howard Dunham; however, Hall didn’t provide any background on this litigation.
