HRS § 663-1 Torts, Who May Sue and For What

• Library: Hawaii Statutes
• Edition: 2023
• Currency: Current through 2023 Legislative Session
• Year: 2023
• Citation: HRS § 663-1

Except as otherwise provided, all persons residing or being in the State shall be personally responsible in damages, for trespass or injury, whether direct or consequential, to the person or property of others, or to their spouses or reciprocal beneficiaries, children under majority, or wards, by such offending party, or the offending party's child under majority, or by the offending party's command, or by the offending party's animals, domestic or wild; and the party aggrieved may prosecute therefor in the proper courts.

Cite as HRS § 663-1

History: CC 1859, §1125; RL 1925, §2365; RL 1935, §4049; RL 1945, §10485; RL 1955, § 246-1; HRS § 663-1; am L 1972, c 144, §2(a) and c 189, §1; gen ch 1985; am L 1997, c 383, §65

Note:

Rules of Court

Guardian ad litem, see HRCP rule 17(c); DCRCP rule 17(c). Affirmative defenses, see HRCP rule 8(c); DCRCP rule 8(c).

Law Journals and Reviews

Wrongful Termination Law in Hawaii. V HBJ No. 13, at pg. 71.

Negligent Infliction of Emotional Harm. 7 HBJ 148.

Apportionment of Personal Injury Damages and Expert Medical Opinion in Hawaii. 8 HBJ 25.

Negligent Infliction of Mental Distress: Rodrigues v. State and Leong v. Takasaki. 11 HBJ 29.

Pharmaceutical Soundings in Hawaii. VII HBJ No. 13, at pg. 33.

Hawaii's Loss of Consortium Doctrine: Our Substantive, Relational Interest Focus. VII HBJ No. 13, at pg. 59.

Tort Case Summaries. 13 HBJ No. 13, at pg. 1.

The Hawai`i Law on Legal Malpractice and Liability to Non-Clients. 13 HBJ No. 13, at pg. 41.

Is it the Deep Six for "Deepening Insolvency?" 13 HBJ No. 13, at pg. 155.

Wolsk v. State: A Limitation of Governmental Premises Liability. 9 UH L. Rev. 301.

Johnson v. Raybestos-Manhattan, Inc.: The Death of State of the Art Evidence in Strict Products Liability Actions Involving Inherently Dangerous Products. 11 UH L. Rev. 175.

Knodle v. Waikiki Gateway Hotel, Inc.: Imposing a Duty to Protect Against Third Party Criminal Conduct on the Premises. 11 UH L. Rev. 231.

Tort Law--Bertelmann v. Taas Associates: Limits on Dram Shop Liability; Barring Recovery of Bar Patrons, Their Estates and Survivors. 11 UH L. Rev. 277.

Masaki v. General Motors Corp.: Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress and Loss of Filial Consortium. 12 UH L. Rev. 215.

Johnston v. KFC National Management Co.: Employer Social-Host Liability for Torts of Intoxicated Employees. 14 UH L. Rev. 82.

Latent Disease and Toxic Torts in Hawaii: Analysis of the Statute of Limitations, the Rule Against Splitting Causes of Action and Nonidentification Theories of Liability. 15 UH L. Rev. 137.

Henderson v. Professional Coatings Corp.: Narrowing Third-Party Liability in Automobile Accidents. 15 UH L. Rev. 353.

Sexual Harassment in the Workplace: Remedies Available to Victims in Hawaii. 15 UH L. Rev. 453.

AIDS Phobia: The Infliction of Emotional Distress and the Fear of AIDS. 16 UH L. Rev. 143.

Reyes v. Kuboyama: Vendor Liability for the Sale of Intoxicating Liquor to Minors under a Common Law Negligence Theory. 17 UH L. Rev. 355.

Empowering Battered Women: Changes in Domestic Violence Laws in Hawai'i. 17 UH L. Rev. 575.

Seller Beware: New Law Protects Hawai'i Home Buyers. 18 UH L. Rev. 981.

BMW v. Gore: Curbing Excessive Punitive Damages. 19 UH L. Rev. 311.

Touchette v. Ganal: Reaffirming the Judicial Activism of the Hawai'i Supreme Court. 19 UH L. Rev. 345.

Interspousal Torts: A Procedural Framework for Hawai'i. 19 UH L. Rev. 377.

The Best Place, Inc. v. Penn America Insurance Company: Hawai'i Bad Faith Cause of Action for Insurer Misconduct. 19 UH L. Rev. 845.

Cyberprivacy on the Corporate Intranet: Does the Law Allow Private-Sector Employers to Read Their Employees' E-mail? 20 UH L. Rev. 165.

The Misappropriation Doctrine in Cyberspace: Protecting the Commercial Value of "Hot News" Information. 20 UH L. Rev. 421.

Russ Francis v. Lee Enterprises: Hawai'i Turns Away From Tortious Breach of Contract. 23 UH L. Rev. 647.

Hawai'i's Response to Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation and the Protection of Citizens' Right to Petition the Government. 24 UH L. Rev. 411.

Child Pornography on the Internet: The Effect of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996 on Tort Recovery for Victims Against Internet Service Providers. 24 UH L. Rev. 763.

Fido Seeks Full Membership In The Family: Dismantling The Property Classification of Companion Animals By Statute. 25 UH L. Rev. 481.

Scientific Expert Admissibility in Mold Exposure Litigation: Establishing Reliability of Methodologies in Light of Hawai'i's Evidentiary Standard. 26 UH L. Rev. 99.

The Strict Products Liability Sleeper in Hawai'i: Toward Exclusion of the "Unreasonably Dangerous" Standard. 26 UH L. Rev. 143.

Punishment and Deterrence: Merely a Mantra; A Casenote on State Farm v. Campbell. 26 UH L. Rev. 229.

Holding Hawai'i Nursing Facilities Accountable for the Inadequate Pain Management of Elderly Residents. 27 UH L. Rev. 233.

Don't Smile, Your Image Has Just Been Recorded on a Camera-Phone: The Need For Privacy in the Public Sphere. 27 UH L. Rev. 377.

Global Warming: Attorneys General Declare Public Nuisance. 27 UH L. Rev. 525.

Knievel v. ESPN: Demonstrating the Need for a Common-Sense Subjective Standard for Meaning in Defamation Law. 28 UH L. Rev. 231.

Extending Loss of Consortium to Reciprocal Beneficiaries: Breaking the Illogical Boundary Between Severe Injury and Death in Hawai'i Tort Law. 28 UH L. Rev. 429.

Hawai'i's Workers' Compensation Scheme: An Employer's License to Kill? 29 UH L. Rev. 211.

Medical Malpractice in Hawai'i: Tort Crisis or Crisis of Medical Errors? 30 UH L. Rev. 167.

From Anti-Injunction to Radical Reform: Proposing a Unifying Approach to Class-Action Adjudication. 31 UH L. Rev. 155.

Where plaintiffs argued that State waived its Eleventh Amendment immunity through the enactment of § 353-14 and the State's Tort Claims Act [sic], § 662-2 and this section, no express consent or applicable waiver provisions found. 940 F. Supp. 1523.

Where the proper inquiry in this jurisdiction for the assignability of a claim for relief is whether the cause of action alleges a personal injury or an injury to property, and the complaint asserted non-personal injuries, the professional malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, and fraud claims were assignable. 113 H. 373, 153 P.3d 444.

Bad faith.

Hawaii supreme court, seeking to avoid inequitable or absurd result, would allow plaintiff's bad faith claim, where plaintiff submitted claims to defendant insurer for losses suffered as a third-party beneficiary of insurance contract. 947 F. Supp. 429.

Independent cause of action for breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing would not lie, where there was no coverage liability on underlying insurance policy. 955 F. Supp. 1218.

Where defendant contended that claim for breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing was barred by two-year statute of limitations governing damage to persons and property (§ 657-7 ), since there is no element in the cause of action for bad faith that requires a plaintiff to suffer personal injury, it is not in reality a cause of action based upon a "personal injury", and the applicable statute of limitations is six years and is found in the catchall provision of § 657-1 (§ 657-1(4) ). 986 F. Supp. 1334.

Limitations period applicable to cause of action for bad faith, discussed; where complaint was not filed until almost one year after the limitations period had lapsed, to the extent that complaint alleged a claim for the tort of bad faith denial of benefits, summary judgment granted in favor of defendant as to plaintiff's claim for tort of bad faith. 11 F. Supp. 2d 1204.

Violations of the unfair settlement provision, § 431:13-103(a), may be used as evidence to indicate bad faith in accordance with the guidelines of Best Place, Inc. v. Penn America Ins. Co. 27 F. Supp. 2d 1211.

Plaintiff failed to exhaust the administrative remedies provided to plaintiff by chapter 386; prior to filing a separate suit for bad faith denial of benefits or payments, plaintiff must first exhaust all available administrative remedies before the department of labor and industrial relations, disability compensation division. 28 F. Supp. 2d 588.

Insurer's motion granted to extent it sought summary judgment as to claims against defendant, where uncontradicted evidence was that defendant was the claims handler for subject insurance policy; defendant did not have a contract with plaintiffs; defendant could not be liable to plaintiffs for bad faith. 74 F. Supp. 2d 975.

Insurer's motion for summary judgment granted on defendant's counterclaim alleging that insurer acted in tortious breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing by, among other things, its failure to pay underinsured motorist policy benefits, improper use of "excuse" that defendant violated consent-to-settle clause, and wrongful pursuit of its offset theory. 176 F. Supp. 2d 1005.

Hawaii's Best Place bad faith tort is law that impacts insurance, but does not solely regulate it; therefore, plaintiff's claim as stated arising under Best Place bad faith tort did not fit within Employee Retirement Income Security Act's (ERISA) saving clause. Controlling precedent mandated that plaintiff's claim was related to the processing of a claim and was preempted by ERISA because ERISA's civil remedy was plaintiff's sole avenue of relief. 242 F. Supp. 2d 752.

Where insured alleged that insurer breached covenant of good faith and fair dealing by initiating action for declaratory judgment, insured would be unable to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that insurer's filing of lawsuit was based on an interpretation of disability insurance policy that was unreasonable; among other things, a reasonable jury could decide issue of fraud in insurer's favor based upon insured's failure to include 1990 surgery on insured's application for the policy. 248 F. Supp. 2d 974.

Insurance company did not breach the duty of good faith and fair dealing when it decided not to defend the operator of a concrete recycling plant or indemnify the owner where, inter alia, it appeared that plaintiffs did not disagree with insurance company's assertion that at a minimum, there was a genuine dispute as to whether coverage existed under the insurance policy. 307 F. Supp. 2d 1170.