Kealoha v. County of Hawaii

• Citation: 74 Haw. 308,844 P.2d 670
• Decision Date: 15 January 1993
• Docket Number: No. 15963,15963
• Parties: Jason KEALOHA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. COUNTY OF HAWAII, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Supreme Court of Hawai'i

Page 670

844 P.2d 670

74 Haw. 308

Jason KEALOHA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. COUNTY OF HAWAII, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 15963.

Supreme Court of Hawai'i.

Jan. 15, 1993.

Reconsideration Denied Feb. 1, 1993.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Where the proffered evidence is relevant under Hawaii Rules of Evidence (HRE) 401, and because HRE 402 states unequivocally that, subject to only certain explicit exceptions, all relevant evidence is admissible, the trial court's rulings under HRE 401 and 402 are reviewed under the right/wrong standard.

2. Under the abuse of discretion standard, the trial court may not be reversed by an appellate court unless the trial court clearly exceeded the bounds of reason or disregarded rules or principles of law or practice to the substantial detriment of a party litigant. Under that standard, different trial judges may, on the same facts, arrive at opposite rulings without any of them being reversible on appeal.

3. Different standards of review must be applied to trial court decisions on the admissibility of evidence, depending on the requirements of the particular rule of evidence at issue.

4. When application of a particular evidence rule can yield only one correct result, the proper standard for appellate review is the right/wrong standard. The traditional abuse of discretion standard should be applied in the case of those evidence rules that require a "judgment call" on the part of the trial court.

5. There is no common law tort duty on the part of motorcyclists in Hawaii, who may be injured in potential accidents, to mitigate damages by wearing protective headgear.

6. We review a trial court's refusal to admit evidence pursuant to HRE 403 under the abuse of discretion standard.

7. A trial court's grant of attorney's fees under Rule 26 of the Hawaii Arbitration Rules (HAR) is a conclusion of law, reviewable by this court under the right/wrong standard.

8. The language of HAR 26(A) is clear and unambiguous in its restriction of potential sanctions to non-prevailing parties who appeal an arbitration award.

Michael B. Dabney and Joseph K. Kamelamela, Deputies Corp. Counsel, Hilo, for defendant-appellant County of Hawaii.

Walter K. Horie and Anthony H. Yusi of Horie & Yusi, Honolulu, for plaintiff-appellee Jason Kealoha.

Before LUM, C.J., MOON, KLEIN, and LEVINSON, JJ., and MILKS, Circuit Court Judge, assigned by reason of vacancy.

MOON, Justice.

Defendant-appellant County of Hawaii (County) appeals from the judgment entered against it following a jury trial in a negligence action brought by plaintiff-appellee Jason Kealoha (Kealoha), an injured motorcyclist. On appeal, the County contends the trial court erred in denying its motions in limine to admit evidence that Kealoha had not been wearing a helmet at the time of the accident and that Kealoha did not have a license to operate a motorcycle. The trial court denied both motions on the grounds that: 1) in Hawaii there is no tort duty on the part of a motorcyclist to wear protective headgear; and 2) the probative value of the evidence that Kealoha had no motorcycle license was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice to him. Because we decline to recognize a tort duty on the part of motorcyclists to wear protective headgear, and because we agree with the trial court on the prejudicial effect of admitting the evidence that Kealoha did not have a motorcycle license, we affirm the trial court's denial of both of the County's motions.

Additionally, this case had been arbitrated through the Court-Annexed Arbitration Program (CAAP), and Kealoha had been awarded nothing. Having lost at arbitration, Kealoha appealed and requested a trial de novo. Following the trial, the court granted Kealoha's motion for sanctions pursuant to Rule 26 of the Hawaii Arbitration Rules (HAR), awarding him $5,000 in attorney's fees. The County also appeals the trial court's award of attorney's fees, alleging that the court erroneously interpreted HAR 26. We agree, and therefore the trial court's grant of attorney's fees to Kealoha is reversed.

I. BACKGROUND

On the evening of July 8, 1989, Kealoha was injured when the motorcycle he was operating skidded out from under him as he attempted to negotiate a bend on Alii Drive in Kailua-Kona, County of Hawaii. Loose gravel, scattered over the downhill bend, was determined to have caused Kealoha to lose control of his motorcycle. Kealoha suffered moderate to serious injuries to his face, teeth, fingers, arms, and legs. ¹

On April 30, 1990, Kealoha filed a negligence action against the County, alleging improper maintenance of Alii Drive. The lawsuit was referred to the CAAP, and the arbitration hearing was held on December 4, 1990. On May 13, 1991, the arbitrator issued a decision finding Kealoha ninety percent liable and the County ten percent liable for the accident. By operation of the comparative negligence statute, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 663-31, ² Kealoha was barred from recovering damages against the County.

Pursuant to HAR 22, Kealoha appealed the arbitrator's decision and requested a trial de novo. Prior to trial, the County submitted two motions in limine to the trial court: 1) to admit evidence that Kealoha was not wearing a helmet when the accident occurred and to instruct the jury that it must reduce any damages awarded to Kealoha if it found that his failure to wear a helmet was unreasonable and contributed to his injuries; and 2) to admit evidence that Kealoha did not have a license to operate a motorcycle.

Following a hearing, the trial court denied both motions. On the first motion, the court found that: 1) at present, the majority of states do not allow admission of helmet non-use; 2) the defendant should not be permitted to diminish the consequences of its own negligence in causing the accident; 3) reducing damages for failure to wear a helmet would result in a windfall for tortfeasors; 4) to admit evidence of helmet non-use would lead to a battle of the experts; 5) the defendant must take the plaintiff as it finds him; and 6) mitigation of damages is traditionally based only on plaintiff's post-accident conduct.

On the second motion, the court ruled that although evidence of Kealoha's unlicensed status would be relevant to the issue of negligence, the probative value of that evidence, under Hawaii Rules of Evidence (HRE) 403, was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice to Kealoha. The court cited the danger that the jury might automatically assume that an unlicensed driver was incompetent to operate a motorcycle.

On December 6, 1991, a jury verdict was rendered, apportioning liability fifty percent to Kealoha and fifty percent to the County. The jury awarded Kealoha $15,000 in special damages and $27,500 in general damages. Judgment was entered in favor of Kealoha, pursuant to HRS § 663-31, in the amount of $21,250. Having prevailed at the trial de novo, Kealoha subsequently moved for sanctions pursuant to HAR 26. The trial court granted the motion, awarding Kealoha $5,000 in attorney's fees.

The County now appeals from the trial court's entry of judgment. Specifically, the County contends that the trial court erred in refusing to admit the evidence of Kealoha's non-use of a helmet and his unlicensed status. The County also argues that the trial court erroneously interpreted HAR 26 in awarding attorney's fees to Kealoha.

II. DISCUSSION

The County asserts that the trial court erred as a matter of law when it refused to admit evidence that Kealoha was not wearing a helmet when the accident occurred. Essentially, the County argues that the trial court erroneously refused to recognize a duty on the part of Kealoha to mitigate damages in a motorcycle accident by wearing protective headgear. The County contends that if it could demonstrate that any of Kealoha's specific injuries were attributable to his non-use of a helmet, the jury would be obliged to reduce any award to Kealoha for those injuries.

A. Standard of Review

The County contends that the trial court's refusal to admit the evidence in question is essentially a conclusion of law; therefore, the correct standard of review is the right/wrong standard. Traditionally, the rule concerning the admissibility of evidence, which appellate courts in Hawaii have followed, is that the trial court is vested with discretion to admit or exclude evidence, and the court's discretion will not be reversed absent an abuse of that discretion. State v. Nakamura, 65 Haw. 74, 648 P.2d 183 (1982); State v. O'Daniel, 62 Haw. 518, 616 P.2d 1383 (1980); State v. Buffalo, 4 Haw.App. 646, 674 P.2d 1014 (1983), cert. denied, 67 Haw. 686, 744 P.2d 781 (1984). However, both this court and the Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) have reviewed evidentiary rulings according to a standard other than abuse of discretion, depending on which particular rule of evidence was at issue.

For example, in Kaeo v. Davis, 68 Haw. 447, 719 P.2d 387 (1986), the trial court ruled that evidence of the defendant-driver's consumption of liquor prior to the automobile accident at issue, without more, was not admissible. On appeal, this court ruled that the trial court had erred in not admitting the evidence of defendant's drinking. Id. at 451-53, 719 P.2d at 390-92. However, that ruling was not based solely on the abuse of discretion standard. The evidence of defendant's drinking was first analyzed under the rules of evidence concerning relevance, that is, Hawaii Rules of Evidence (HRE) 401 and 402. ³ Because this court concluded that the evidence was "unquestionably" relevant to the plaintiff's negligence claim, id. at 453, 719 P.2d at 391-92, there could have been no discretion in the trial court to decline to admit the evidence. Conversely, we note that if the trial court had found that the evidence was not relevant, it would likewise have had no discretion to admit the evidence, given the clear mandate of HRE 402, that is, "...