Hueter’s lawsuit against ASG and 70+ Am Samoa officials dismissed

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Citing that the courts in American Samoa are the proper venue, U.S District Court Judge Trevor N. McFadden dismissed without prejudice a complaint filed with the federal court in Washington D.C. against ASG and more than 70 American Samoa officials including former Gov. Lolo Matalasi Moliga and current Gov. Lemanu Peleti Mauga.

The federal complaint was first filed in late 2020 by local resident Steven Jay Pincus Hueter, against the COVID-19 Task Force members, ASG, and other ASG officials at the time. More defendants were later added to the complaint, such as lawmakers, as well as other reasons for the complaint, which first focused on alleged violation of plaintiff’s civil rights after the Lolo Administration imposed COVID-19 restrictions in 2020.

As previously reported by Samoa News, the federal complaint came after a similar lawsuit was rejected by the High Court of American Samoa, where Hueter was unsuccessful in efforts to overturn COVID restrictions at the time, pertaining to public gatherings and freedom to attend church services at certain times.

At the outset of his 15-page opinion dated June 18, McFadden pointed out that a plaintiff cannot sue anywhere he chooses.

“Aside from the prerequisites of personal and subject matter jurisdiction, a federal court simply might not be the most appropriate or convenient forum to adjudicate a controversy,” he explained. “In that case, the doctrine of forum non conveniens allows dismissal in favor of a better venue. This is such a case.”

(“Forum non conveniens” is a discretionary power that allows courts to dismiss a case where another court, or forum, is much better suited to hear the case, according to the Legal Information Institute website.)

Plaintiff, in one of the many amendments to his complaint, added the U.S Secretary of Interior as a defendant, who is the federal official with oversight over American Samoa as well as the one who appoints Chief Justice Michael Kruse and Associate Justice Fiti A. Sunia. Both Kruse and Sunia also later became federal defendants.

However, in March this year, the federal court granted the Secretary of Interior’s motion dismissing the complaint against her. And that left the remaining defendants, all residents of American Samoa — referred to later as the American Samoa Defendants that included current and former lawmakers, as well as current and former task force members — including those from the private sector.

“Because the District of Columbia is a remarkably inconvenient place to litigate a dispute between American Samoans, the Court will grant the motions to dismiss for ‘forum non conveniens’,” McFadden said in the decision, which gave a brief summary of the overall lawsuit.

Plaintiff alleges that ASG’s early policies to stop the spread of COVID-19, namely a prohibition on public gatherings, violated several of his rights, including his right to exercise his religion. He also alleges that those restrictions violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) and the Equal Protection Clause.

He later claimed that members of the Fono improperly used federal COVID relief funds.

According to Hueter, the misuse of funds constituted a conspiracy to violate his equal protection rights, in violation of federal law. (See Samoa News edition Mar. 22, 2021 for details.)

He also challenged an ASG decision to allow a fishing vessel to dock on Tutuila without first passing through COVID protocols, alleging that this decision was a conspiracy intended to violate his rights.

Lastly, Hueter alleges violations of his rights by Kruse and Sunia during his lawsuits before the High Court of American Samoa.

For relief, Hueter requests millions in damages, an injunction against the docking of the fishing vessel, and other injunctive relief. However, the government defendants moved to dismiss the complaint, as did Kruse and Sunia.

These motions raise many threshold grounds to dismiss the complaint, including lack of standing, lack of personal jurisdiction, abstention doctrines, and forum non covneniens, as well as some merit grounds, like failure to state a claim, according to the McFadden’s decision, noting that the motions are now ripe for decision.

McFadden points out that the U.S Supreme Court recognized long ago the “very old” problem of plaintiffs misusing venue to force trial “at a most inconvenient place for an adversary.”

Plaintiffs who used this tactic sought “not simply justice but perhaps justice blended with some harassment”. And therefore, courts developed the doctrine of forum non conveniens to deal with inappropriate forum-shopping — citing a 1994 case.

McFadden noted the American Samoa defendants’ proposed alternative forum, the High Court in American Samoa, instead of the federal court in D.C. And through his prior lawsuits, McFadden said that Hueter has essentially conceded the adequacy of courts in American Samoa, where the plaintiff already sued most defendants there.

Additionally, those suits make clear that all defendants are subject to service of process in American Samoa. And each defendant has filed declarations attesting that they live and work in American Samoa.

“Courts in American Samoa would also give Hueter some remedy. They apply the Constitution and the laws of the United States — meaning that they can hear and adjudicate Hueter’s federal claims,” said McFadden citing the American Samoa Constitution and a 1975 federal case involving the territory.

“Hueter already knows this. He filed largely identical claims there, implicitly admitting that those courts can adjudicate his claims and remedy his alleged injuries,” he said and declared that, “American Samoa is thus an adequate alternative forum.”

McFadden’s decision also went into details on how the court “balances the public and private interest factors” and “determine[s] the amount of deference due Hueter’s choice of forum,” the federal court said.

“Hueter is due little deference here,” the judge said, and noted that for starters, he is not a D.C. resident, resides in an American territory and the D.C. federal court has no meaningful ties to the actions in Hueter’s complaint.

The judge acknowledged that only Hueter’s inclusion of Secretary of Interior gave this dispute any connection to the District of Columbia. “And those claims were meritless,” McFadden said.

Indeed, his inclusion of the Secretary of Interior is a transparent attempt to “manufacture venue in the District of Columbia”, said McFadden citing a 1993 federal court decision, and that attempt is meant “to harass the defendant[s],” not motivated by any legitimate reason.

McFadden recalled that Hueter filed in American Samoa his original suit against the COVID restrictions. When he lost his motion for injunctive relief, Hueter sued the presiding judge of the panel in the High Court. After that, he again sued, restating his claims about the COVID restrictions and alleging that Fono members had misused COVID relief funds. Rather than continue these suits, Hueter moved almost all the same claims to the D.C. federal court.

According to the federal judge, this history reflects that Hueter did so not to “take advantage of favorable law,” but because courts in American Samoa had rejected his requests. And yet, he continued his efforts, despite repeated denials in his home forum.

“Hueter seeks “justice blended with some harassment” by coming to this Court after so many adverse rulings elsewhere,” McFadden declared and acknowledged that the American Samoa lawsuits never included Associate Justice Sunia as a defendant nor any challenges to the entry of the fishing vessel.

“But Hueter has identified no reason why he could not bring those claims in American Samoa. They are all based on federal law, which the courts in American Samoa also apply. That Hueter could have brought those claims in American Samoa reinforces the harassing nature of his suit before this Court,” he said.

According to the federal judge, Hueter makes no argument about forum non conveniens and that his closest response is that American Samoa lacks “conflict-free Justices,” and thus he cannot return there for remedy.

“Not so. Judges in American Samoa are not conflicted simply because of their rulings against Hueter. And if the judges do have conflicts because of pending lawsuits against them, Hueter has only his litigiousness to blame,” he said.

McFadden noted that the “private and public interest factors support trying this case in American Samoa”.

However, if Hueter insists on a federal court, McFadden said the federal court in Honolulu, is much closer to the parties, available evidence, and necessary witnesses.

Hueter “could sue in the federal court there [Honolulu], where “he already has against many of the same defendants,” McFadden said, referring to the case that Hueter and other Alega residents filed in 2021, and included AST Telecom, aka Bluesky Communications. (Samoa News will report in future editions on updates of Honolulu federal court case.)

“In contrast, this district is almost as far from American Samoa as a federal court could be.  Because the balance of factors favors suit in American Samoa, the Court will grant the pending motions to dismiss,” he said.

“Hueter’s complaint will be dismissed without prejudice,” said McFadden.