Case Notes

• Jurisdiction: Hawaii,United States
• Citation: Vol. 19 No. 05
• Publication year: 2015

CASE NOTES

Appeal Pointers

A circuit court order granting summary judgment or dismissing claims is not appealable unless it is reduced to a separate judgment. HRGP 58; Jenkins v. Cades Schutte Fleming & Wright, 76 Haw. 115, 869 P2d 1334 (1994).

Supreme Court

Insurance

Ito v. Investors Life Equity Holding Co., SGAP-10-0000131, February 27, 2015, (Nakayama, J.; Pollack, J. dissenting). Investors Equity Life Holding Company (IELHC) was the former parent company and sole shareholder of Investors Equity Life Insurance Company of Hawaii, Ltd. (IEL). In 1994 IEL was liquidated, thus creating the IEL estate. The State of Hawaii Insurance Commissioner (Commissioner) was appointed as IEL's liquidator (Liquidator). This case concerned the Liquidator's denial of IELHC's purported claim to all remaining assets of the IEL estate. In its opening brief, IELHC raised five points of error : (1) "The circuit court below had no subject matter jurisdiction to confirm an 'IELHC claim' which [Commissioner] Schmidt himself contrived, but which appellant has not brought;" (2) "The circuit court had no personal jurisdiction over appellant;" (3) "Because the California lawsuit is a prior pending action, the 'IELHC claim' which [Commissioner] Schmidt invented must be abated;" (4) "The summary procedures utilized by the circuit court denied appellant's rights to due process;" and (5) "Even if appellant had brought the 'IELHC claim,' which appellant had not, [Commissioner] Schmidt is judicially estopped from asserting that appellant's claim is too late." The Hawaii Supreme Court held that the circuit court did not err in concluding that IELHC asserted a claim against IEL's estate and that this claim was time barred. Furthermore, the circuit court had personal jurisdiction over IELHC and subject matter jurisdiction over IELHC's claim, there were no grounds for abating the adjudication of IELHC's claim, and the circuit court's procedures met constitutional due process requirements.

Pollack, J. dissented, stating that of fundamental importance in this case was the distinction between ownership of an insurer, represented by title to company stock, and ownership of the insurer's assets, i.e. the insurer's estate. Stock that represented ownership of an...