A new twist in a 30-year old case involving cost of living adjustment payments to GovGuam retirees, known as the “LOLA COLA” claimants.

There are apparently some 400 or more people who, for whatever reason, never received their payment certificates.

The retirement fund has just published a list identifying the new payees, which adds another $8-million including interest to what's owed.

Attorney Mike Phillips represented the class, and attributes the recent revelation to a FOIA request he made seeking a complete list of all those who were supposed to be paid.

“I sent that FOIA to retirement also but DOA didn't know that and Paula Blas was completely honest, and honestly no pun intended, within days she sent the complete list to me. DOA didn't know that, and so what that list meant was me plus 400 people. The 400 alone Nestor, I think without interest, if I'm not mistaken, exceeded $4-million dollars,” said Phillips.

Phillips, who is owed several million dollars for his attorney's fee percentage for representing the “LOLA COLA” class, said the administration refuses to pay despite a law passed last year mandating it.

Now there are hundreds more that are owed COLA money after the retirement fund disclosure.

Phillips said, “Until she did that, nobody knew, and I don’t think anybody would've known, that there were over 400 people that they didn't even give the COLA certificate to. You were there, if you look back at that time my class was well over four thousand and so when you think about it it's reasonable that well over ten percent were not found, or didn't get the message, for whatever reason didn't receive their cola certificate.”

Phillips said it's just a list of those retirees who were never contacted, and not the complete list of unpaid retirees, which means there could be many more.

He added that DOA Director Ed Birn’s response was that the retention period for the documents had expired and the records were no longer available.