Case Notes

• Publication year: 2016
• Citation: Vol. 20 No. 12

CASE NOTES

Supreme Court

Civil Procedure

Kilakila 'O Haleakala v. Univ. of HI., SCWC-13-0000182, October 6, 2016, (Pollack, J.). On certiorari, Kilakila argued that the circuit court erred by limiting its judicial review to the administrative record considered by UH. Kilakila also contended that the circuit court's determination that the environmental assessment for the Management Plan complied with HEPA was flawed as the environmental assessment failed to consider significant impacts of the plan and that consequently, the court further erred in ruling that an environmental impact statement was not required. The Hawaii Supreme Court held that in a declaratory action brought to challenge an agency's determination, an environmental impact statement was not required and judicial review was not restricted to an administrative record. However, the circuit court did not err because the parties were permitted to submit documents beyond those contained within the agency record, and the court did not foreclose further discovery requests by Kilakila. Additionally, the Hawaii Supreme Court concluded that the environmental assessment for the Management Plan complied with procedures under HEPA and did not fail to properly consider the Telescope Project. Because UH's conclusion that the Management Plan would not cause significant environmental impacts was not clearly erroneous, an environmental impact statement was not required.

Criminal

State v. Tui, No. SCWC-15-0000387, October 10, 2016, (McKenna, J.). This case arose from a dispute regarding whether, under Haw. Rev. Stat. ch. 704, custody of a defendant deemed unfit to proceed due to mental disease or disorder, can be transferred from the Director of Health ("Director") to the Department of Public Safety ("DPS") before a judicial determination that the defendant has regained fitness. The Circuit Court answered in the negative, and the Director appealed. The day after the Director's appeal, the circuit court determined that the Defendant was fit to proceed, and transferred his custody to the DPS. The ICA dismissed the appeal as moot, holding that it lacked appellate jurisdiction because custody of the Defendant had already been transferred from the Director to the DPS. According to the ICA, the "capable of repetition, yet evading review" exception to the mootness doctrine "d[id] not appear to apply" because the "Director ha[d] not shown that review of [the] adverse trial court could not be obtained through other means, such as a petition for writ of mandamus or prohibition." Thus, this case presented the procedural question of whether the ICA erred in not considering the "capable of repetition, yet evading review" exception to the mootness doctrine on this basis. The Hawaii Supreme Court held that because there is no requirement that "other means, such as a petition for writ of mandamus or prohibition" be pursued before an appellate court can consider whether the "capable of repetition, yet evading review" exception to the mootness doctrine applies, the ICA erred in not considering the exception. The Hawaii Supreme Court then considered whether the exception applied, and held that it did.

Family

Tumaneng v. Tumaneng, No. SCWC-14-0000895, October 21, 2016 (McKenna, J.). This case arose out of a custody dispute regarding physical custody of B.C.B.T., born in 2006 ("Son"). Son's mother, Brelie Gail Balon Tumaneng ("Mother"), moved to modify custody terms contained in an uncontested decree filed in her divorce from Son's father, Brixon Andres Tumaneng ("Father"). Mother alleged she should have been allowed to present evidence of Father's pre-decree domestic violence at the trial on her motion. ICA precedent at the time required the family court to find a material change in circumstances before it could reconsider the original custody order. The ICA therefore ruled that the family court properly excluded evidence of alleged pre-decree domestic violence on relevance grounds because such evidence was not related to the material change in circumstances preliminarily found to exist by the family court, which was Father's relocation to Arizona and Mother's possible move away from Hawaii with her new husband. The Hawaii Supreme Court held that the family court erred by excluding evidence of alleged pre-decree domestic violence in making its custody determination.

Labor

Dannenberg v. State, No...