A judge on the US Pacific island of Saipan on Monday ordered a Hong Kong company to pay seven Chinese construction workers a total of US$5.4 million f.
HONOLULU (AP) A judge on the U.S. Pacific island of Saipan on Monday ordered a Hong Kong company to pay seven Chinese construction workers a total of $5.4 million for forcing them to work long hours in dangerous conditions to build a casino, while they were denied medical care for injuries and threatened with deportation and death.
Chief Judge Ramona Manglona of the U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory, said she issued her ruling after Hong Kong s Imperial Pacific International repeatedly failed to comply with court orders to exchange information with the lawsuit s plaintiffs.
Court awards $5.43M in damages to casino construction workers
By Steve Limtiaco
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A federal judge in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands on Monday awarded $5.43 million in damages to seven Chinese construction workers who had been hired to build the Imperial Palace casino, on Saipan.
The men, who said they were recruited from China under false pretenses, said they were victims of human trafficking, subjected to forced labor, and were injured at the worksite. They also had sued the contractors who employed them – Gold Mantis Construction Decoration and MCC International Saipan – but settled with those companies, and those complaints were dismissed.
CHIEF Judge Ramona V. Manglona of the District Court for the NMI has entered a $5,915,595.98 million default judgment in favor of seven construction workers who sued Imperial Pacific International (CNMI) LLC over forced labor and human trafficking allegations.
 IPIâs mistreatment of the workers was âappalling,â Judge Manglona said in her 40-page order on Monday. âIPI was the driving forceâ behind the egregious conditions faced by the plaintiffs, she added, all the âwhile benefiting from that exploitation.
She awarded the plaintiffs a total of $2,957,797.79 in compensatory damages, and $2,957,797.79 in punitive damages. The judge also awarded the plaintiffs a total of $332,350 for emotional distress, $65,945.79 for lost income, $359,502 for future lost income, and $2,200,000 for pain and suffering.
Imperial Pacific International, the Hong Kong-based developer, and owner of the Imperial Palace Casino on the US Pacific island of Saipan, has been ordered to pay seven former workers $5.43 million.
A fire at the construction site of the Imperial Palace Casino in 2017. This week, a judge on the US Pacific island ordered the resort’s parent company to pay seven former workers $5.4 million. (Image:
Marinas Variety)
Chief Judge Ramona Manglona of the US District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, a US territory, handed down the ruling. Her decision was based on Imperial Pacific repeatedly failing to comply with court orders to exchange information regarding the plaintiffs’ lawsuit.