State ordered to pay $370K in attorneys fees in Hawaiian land trust case

The state is poised to pay $370,418 in attorneys fees after losing a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 2,700 Native Hawaiians who spent years languishing on the waitlist for homestead land.

The amount is a small fraction of what the state is expected to end up paying after the full costs of attorneys fees are assessed and damages awarded to the plaintiffs.

“The state is well aware that it is going to be a very significant amount and that’s a consequence of its decision to fight this lawsuit for 20 years,” said attorney Carl Varady, who along with Tom Grande has represented the plaintiffs in the case known as Kalima v. State.

The $370,418 payment is pending approval from the Hawaii Legislature and covers only attorneys fees during an appeal that stretched from 2017 to 2020. The case dates back to 1999. Varady said a request for the full cost of attorneys fees will be made later on in the awards process.

The Hawaii Supreme Court last year issued a stinging rebuke to the state for its failure to reduce a growing waitlist of Native Hawaiians seeking homesteads. In a 5-0 decision, the justices allowed the class- action lawsuit to proceed and damages be awarded to the plaintiffs, some of whom have waited for decades for residential, ranching and farming leases on a 203,000-acre land trust.

A lower court had ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in 2009, finding the state liable for breaches of the land trust. But the case continued to be batted around in the courts. In the meantime, about 400 of the plaintiffs died.

The state Supreme Court sent the case back to the Circuit Court to determine damages for individual plaintiffs, who are expected to be compensated for rental payments they incurred during the years they awaited a residential lot. The state is also on the hook to cover damages for delays in awarding agricultural and pastoral lots, though matrices for determining those damages have yet to be established.

The land trust was created a century ago by the federal government and taken over by the state in 1959. Those at least 50% Hawaiian are eligible to apply for 99-year leases at $1 a year.

The House Finance Committee recently approved the settlement of the attorney’s fees and directed the funds to come out of the budget of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, which oversees the trust. The full House is expected to vote on the settlement and about a dozen others submitted by the Hawaii Attorney General’s office this month.

As for compensating plaintiffs, Varady said he hoped the process of awarding damages will begin this year.

“It’s been a long battle and we hope it will be resolved soon so that the clients don’t have to wait any longer,” he said. “They are all very aged and many of them have passed since the case started.”

He said if a claimant has died, the family will receive the settlement.