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Supreme Court
Civil Procedure
Schmidt v. Dubin, No. SCWC-18-0000291, September 16, 2024, (Ginoza, J., with Eddins, J. and Kawano, J., dissenting). This appeal arose from claims asserted by Petitioner/Plaintiff-Appellant Thomas F. Schmidt (Schmidt) against his former attorney, Respondents/Defendants-Appellees Gary V Dubin and the Dubin Law Offices (collectively, Dubin). Schmidt brought suit in the circuit court alleging Dubin breached contractual and other duties to represent Schmidt in a separate lawsuit (Ruthruff Lawsuit) and improperly kept a $100,000 retainer that Schmidt claims he paid to Dubin for future legal work in the Ruthruff Lawsuit. The circuit court entered two orders granting partial summary judgment for Dubin and also awarded Dubin's attorneys' fees and costs as the prevailing party. The award for attorneys' fees was based on HRS § 607-14. The award for costs was based on HRS § 607-9 and Hawaii Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 54(d)(1). The circuit court entered judgment in favor of Dubin and against Schmidt, including on the attorneys' fees and costs. Schmidt appealed to the ICA, challenging the circuit court's first summary judgment ruling, regarding his claim that Dubin improperly kept $100,000 and breached contractual duties. The ICA held that summary judgment on these claims was improper, vacated the circuit court's judgment as to these claims, but affirmed the judgment in all other respects. Schmidt filed a motion for reconsideration, asserting the ICA should also vacate the attorneys' fees and costs award, which the ICA denied. Schmidt's application for certiorari contended the ICA erred in affirming the portion of the circuit court's judgment that awarded attorneys' fees and costs to Dubin, and in denying Schmidt's motion for reconsideration on this issue. Schmidt argued the ICA erred because, although it vacated summary judgment for Dubin on Schmidt's breach of contract claims, the ICA simultaneously affirmed the award of attorneys' fees and costs when Dubin was no longer the prevailing party on the breach of contract claims for purposes of HRS. §§ 607-14 and 607-9 and Haw. R. Civ. P. Rule 54(d)(1). The Hawaii Supreme Court held that after vacating the judgment on the breach of contract claims, the ICA erred by affirming the judgment "in all other respects," which included judgment in favor of Dubin for attorneys' fees and costs as the prevailing party. See Ass'n of Owners of Kalele Kai v. Yoshikawa, 149 Hawai'i 417, 418, 493 P.3d 939, 940 (2021) ("[W]hen a judgment upon which attorneys' fees and costs were based has been vacated, attorneys' fees and costs arising out of that judgment should also be vacated[.]"). The Hawaii Supreme Court further held that the ICA erred by denying Schmidt's motion for reconsideration, which expressly asserted that the attorneys' fees and costs order should be vacated.
Eddins, J., joined by Kawano, J., dissented. Eddins, J., stated that the ICA's SDO and judgment on appeal did not stop the circuit court from revisiting attorney fees and costs on remand. A common-sense, contextual reading of the ICA's decision requires the circuit court to vacate its attorney fee award, because a non-prevailing party doesn't get attorney fees per HRS § 607-14. To reach its conclusion, the majority relied on Chun and Yoshikawa. It quoted Chun's statement that, on remand, circuit courts must "comply strictly with the mandate of the appellate court according to its true intent and meaning, as determined by the directions given by the reviewing court." Chun v. Bd. Of Trs. of Emps.' Ret. Sys. State of Hawaii, 106 Hawaii 416, 439, 106 P.3d 339, 362 (2005). The majority's reasoning placed much weight on strict compliance with a literal reading of the ICA's words - "[t]he Judgment is affirmed in all other respects." Yet the majority blew by the ICA decision's "true intent and meaning." As the Hawaii Supreme Court has directed, "[o]n remand, a trial court must closely adhere to the true intent and meaning of the appellate court's mandate." Matter of Hawaii Elec. Light Co., Inc., 149 Hawai'i 239, 241, 487 P.3d 708, 710 (2021) (HELCO II). "The 'true intent and meaning' of a reviewing court's mandate is not to be found in a solitary word or decontextualized phrase, but rather in the opinion, as a whole, read in conjunction with the judgment and interpreted in light of the case's procedural history and context." Id. (emphasis added). HELCO II rejected an interpretation of a remand instruction that "only works if everything else in the HELCO I opinion and the language of the judgment is ignored." Id. Such a blinkered approach is unreasonable. Id. A remand's scope is determined "not by formula, but by inference from the opinion as a whole." Id.
Contract
Alpha, Inc. v. Board of Water Supply. No. SCWC-22-0000585, September 4, 2024, (Eddins, J.). In this procurement dispute, the Hawaii Supreme Court
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examined HRS §§ 103D-302(b) and 103D-709(d). A procuring agency, the Honolulu Board of Water Supply, (BWS) solicitated bids for a multi-million-dollar well-drilling project. It disqualified a bidder. Then it awarded the contract to the project's only other bidder. The ineligible bidder challenged the decision administratively and then judicially. Because the bidder did not have the proper contractor's license, and received no waiver, it lost each time. Along the way, BWS maintained that the administrative hearings officer and the courts lacked jurisdiction to hear the procurement protest. The Hawaii Supreme Court agreed. A bidder who protests a contract award is entitled to a hearing "provided that[] . . . [f]or contracts with an estimated value of $1,000,000 or more, the protest concerns a matter that is equal to no less than ten per cent of the estimated value of the contract." HRS § 103D-709(d)(2). The law's plain words firmly limit who may initiate a procurement appeal. In Hawaii's public procurement code, there is no prudential consideration -- a standing matter possibly waived -- to secure review. Rather, the law's ten percent requirement is jurisdictional. Here, because the bidder could not satisfy the ten percent limit, no jurisdiction existed to initiate an administrative review hearing.
Criminal
State v. Cardona, No. SCWC-23-0000013, September 20, 2024,
(McKenna, J.). This appeal of a murder conviction arose out of an altercation between strangers in Waikiki after midnight on June 1, 2021. Elijah Horn ("Horn") was near Kuhio Beach with a group of four women he had just met. Two male visitors, decedent Elian Delacerda ("Delacerda") and Osvaldo Castaneda-Pena ("Castaneda-Pena") approached, friendly at first, but then started arguing...
