Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Associate Justice Fiti A. Sunia of the High Court of American Samoa is among the new defendants in the third proposed constitutional rights lawsuit brought by local resident Steven Jay Pincus Hueter, who maintains that his right to assemble at any time remains violated under local COVID-19 restrictions.

Several current and former ASG officials along with federal defendants — the US Secretary of Interior and the Chief Justice of American Samoa — are named in the federal lawsuit filed by Hueter last December, followed by a second amended complaint earlier this year claiming violation of his constitutional rights, such as freedom to assemble and attend religious services due to local COVID-19 restrictions.

The plaintiff filed a proposed third amended complaint — which required court approval for acceptance — adding on names of new defendants including Sunia, who will be the third federal defendant in the lawsuit. The US Attorney’s Office in Washington D.C. is representing the federal defendants.

Hueter’s claims against Sunia are related to the plaintiff’s similar lawsuit against the American Samoa defendants pending in the High Court of American Samoa and a separate lawsuit in the High Court against the Chief Justice.

Plaintiff alleges that Sunia “intentionally, knowingly, and willfully deprived Plaintiff of his constitutional rights in callous indifference, disregard, and disrespect of Plaintiff’s rights by not granting any Hearing relating to Plaintiff’s timely Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order seeking to enjoin American Samoa Government Defendants from discriminating against Plaintiff and prohibiting Plaintiff exercise of his first amendment freedom of religious expression to attend late night Christmas 2020 and late night New Year’s 2020/2021 services after 9PM or after 12 midnight.”

Hueter also contends that Sunia deprived Plaintiff of his Constitutional rights in 2020 and 2021 by not granting a hearing related to Plaintiff’s application for a writ of mandamus in High Court against the Chief Justice.

Last week, the federal defendants’ legal team filed a motion requesting the court to dismiss Hueter’s second complaint; opposed plaintiff’s request for leave to file the proposed third amended complaint, and opposde plaintiff’s second motion for a preliminary injunction against the federal defendants.

(ASG has already requested that the court dismiss Hueter’s second motion for a preliminary injunction. See Samoa News edition yesterday for details and last Friday’s edition on ASG response to other new motions by Hueter.)

The federal defense team argued — among other things — that the court lacks personal jurisdiction over federal employees working and residing in American Samoa because those individuals do not have sufficient contacts with the District of Columbia.

They argued that the Court would lack personal jurisdiction over the claims Plaintiff proposes to assert against Chief Justice Kruse and Associate Justices in their individual capacities.

With respect to the Secretary of the Interior, the proposed amended complaint fails to state a claim as they solely allege responsibility for the actions of other defendants in light of the Secretary’s plenary authority, and do not allege any individual actions by the Secretary personally that harmed Plaintiff.

It’s noted in the federal response that the Chief Justice and Associate Justice are employees of the US Department of Interior.

(Samoa News notes that allegations made by Hueter in his first complaint, followed by the second one — and addressed by the federal defendants in their previous response — were raised again by plaintiff in his latest round of filings.)

LOCAL CASE

During a hearing last Friday at the High Court on Hueter’s local lawsuit against the Chief Justice, the presiding justice, Sunia placed the proceedings on hold for 30-days. Plaintiff requested the stay of proceedings due to Sunia’s name being included as a new federal defendant in the federal court lawsuit.