The last hurdle for the 2022 landmark $328 million settlement in the Hawaiian homesteads class-action lawsuit has been cleared, and the settlement funds can now be transferred to the 2,515 settlement class members in Kalima v. State of Hawaii.

The Hawaii Supreme Court expedited its schedule and dismissed Thursday the remaining outstanding legal challenge in the Kalima litigation by a class member found ineligible to receive compensation. (The settlement agreement says the settlement funds cannot be transferred to the plaintiffs until all appeals have been exhausted.)

“I’m extremely pleased that the Supreme Court recognizes this is a matter of extreme public importance and that our class members, all of whom are elderly and many of whom have waited decades for a homestead, will finally get the compensation that they deserve,” said attorney Tom Grande, who has worked together with attorney Carl Varady on the case since 1999.

Settlement checks to roughly 1,351 living class members should go out in a matter of weeks, said Varady, who began working on this case while at the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp. in 1995.

For the 1,164 or so deceased class members, it will go through probate for the heirs and relatives and is expected to take 18 months to sort out their claims.

The legal team had created a method to resolve as much of the case as possible on a classwide basis, rather than individual trials for the beneficiaries of the Hawaiian Home Lands Trust who filed claims with the Hawaiian Claims Panel between 1991 and 1995.

Although the average settlement amount would be roughly $113,718, the amounts will vary greatly from person to person.

The size of the checks will depend on the length and period of time that people have had to wait, Grande said.

“No amount of money is going to give them back what they were deprived of, which is to have a home and homestead” and the many benefits that go along with it, Grande said.

”Money is not going to make them whole. It’s simply a recognition of the wrong that was done by the state.”

The plaintiffs’ attorneys, provided a summary of its case, saying in part, “The historic breach-of-trust class-action lawsuit, tracing back to the United States’ illegal overthrow of the Kingdom in the early 1890s, vindicates the generations of Native Hawaiians who are not recognized as indigenous people by the government, and without a sovereign land base, are denied most of the social, educational, and health benefits provided to other indigenous peoples living in the U.S.”

The Hawaii Supreme Court, in its ruling Thursday, said thousands of Native Hawaiians have waited to lease land pledged to them under the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920, but Hawaii, both as a state and a territory, had breached its fiduciary duties.

The Kalima cases “chronicle the messy history of the State’s trust breaches. And the snail-paced struggles to redress those betrayals.”

In 1921, Congress established the Hawaiian Home Lands Trust, with 203,000 acres for residential, agricultural and pastoral homestead lots to those of 50% or more Native Hawaiian blood.

There are now nearly 10,000 beneficiaries on Hawaiian homestead lands and another 27,000 on the waitlist.

In 1991 the Legislature passed a law allowing beneficiaries of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act to sue the state.

The law entitled qualified Native Hawaiians compensation for individual trust breaches between statehood (Aug. 21, 1959) and June 30, 1988.

Plaintiffs filed a lawsuit in 1999 claiming the state breached its trust responsibility, and the Oahu Circuit Court agreed.

In June 2020 the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the state breached its trust duty to Native Hawaiian beneficiaries of the Hawaiian Home Lands Trust program by not awarding homestead lots in a timely manner.

A settlement agreement for $328 million was reached in April 2022 by the state with support and funding from the Legislature. In July, Circuit Judge Lisa Cataldo approved the $40 million in attorney fees by Grande and Varady.

The Hawaii Supreme Court expedited its ruling on an appeal by Rickey T. Rivera Jr., who filed his claim in the 1990s. He alleged in his appeal that he was wrongly found ineligible for compensation, which delayed the release of the settlement money for everyone else.

The high court made its ruling Thursday saying Rivera has no right to compensation because he was born two months beyond the statutory period to receive a payout from the settlement.

State Attorney General Anne Lopez said in a news release: “The Supreme Court’s decision today acknowledged Mr. Rivera’s right to be heard in an appellate court. …

“This decision satisfied the remaining condition that needed to be met prior to the release of funds — a final judgment, with all appeals exhausted. We will now work with class counsel to ensure that all funds are released as soon as possible.”

The Department of the Attorney General said it anticipates working with the plaintiffs’ class counsel on an order directing the clerk to pay the settlement funds to the trustee of the qualified settlement trust.

“Once the First Circuit Court approves the order and the clerk pays the money, the trustee can then pay the beneficiaries their shares of the settlement.”

For anyone who may be wondering if they are a class member or an heir or relative of one, contact the claims administrator at kalima-lawsuit.com.