Shibuya v. Architects Hawaii Ltd.

• Decision Date: 29 June 1982
• Docket Number: No. 7139,7139
• Citation: 65 Haw. 26,647 P.2d 276
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court
• Parties: Derek SHIBUYA, Plaintiff-Appellant, and Clark Equipment Company, Defendant-Appellant, v. ARCHITECTS HAWAII LIMITED, formerly known as Haines, Jones, Farrell, White, Gema, Architects, Ltd., also formerly known as Lemmon, Freeth, Haines, Jones& Farrell, Architects, Ltd., also formerly known as Lemmon, Freeth, Haines& Jones, Architects, Ltd., also formerly known as Lemmon, Freeth & Haines, Architects, Ltd., also formerly known as Lemmon & Freeth, Architects, Ltd., a professional corporation, Defendant-Appellee, and Thoht Construction, Inc., formerly known as T. Takahashi, Ltd., a Hawaii corporation, Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff-Appellee, and Industrial Welding, Inc., a Hawaii corporation, Defendant and Third-Party Defendant-Appellee, and Reliance Steel Products Company, First Doe through Fiftieth Doe, inclusive, and First Company through Fiftieth Company, inclusive, Defendants, and Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Honolulu, Inc., a Hawaii corporation, Third-Party Defendant.

Page 276

647 P.2d 276

65 Haw. 26

Derek SHIBUYA, Plaintiff-Appellant and Clark Equipment Company, Defendant-Appellant, v. ARCHITECTS HAWAII LIMITED, formerly known as Haines, Jones Farrell, White, Gema, Architects, Ltd., also formerly known as Lemmon, Freeth, Haines, Jones& Farrell, Architects, Ltd also formerly known as Lemmon, Freeth, Haines& Jones Architects, Ltd., also formerly known as Lemmon, Freeth & Haines, Architects, Ltd., also formerly known as Lemmon & Freeth, Architects, Ltd., a professional corporation, Defendant-Appellee, and Thoht Construction, Inc., formerly known as T. Takahashi, Ltd., a Hawaii corporation, Defendant and Third-Party Plaintiff-Appellee, and Industrial Welding, Inc., a Hawaii corporation, Defendant and Third-Party Defendant-Appellee, and Reliance Steel Products Company, First Doe through Fiftieth Doe, inclusive, and First Company through Fiftieth Company, inclusive, Defendants, and Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Honolulu, Inc., a Hawaii corporation, Third-Party Defendant.

No. 7139.

Supreme Court of Hawai'i.

June 29, 1982.

Syllabus by the Court

1. Parties who have been disadvantaged by distinctions drawn by the legislature in the enactment of a statute have standing to challenge the constitutionality of the statute on grounds that it breaches the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment and Article I, § 5 of the Hawaii Constitution.

2. Equal protection is not a demand that a statute apply equally to all persons. But even where a statute does not employ an inherently invidious classification or does not impinge on fundamental rights, the statute must classify the persons it affects in a manner rationally related to legitimate governmental objectives.

3. The rational basis test is satisfied when the classification in question is reasonable, not arbitrary, and rests upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation, so that all persons similarly circumstanced are treated alike.

4. The basic policy underlying statutes of limitation is to require prompt assertion of claims. However, there is another important policy that favors the adjudication of claims on the merits and ensures that a party with a valid claim will be given an opportunity to present it.

5. There is no doubt that the legislature has the power to change or entirely abrogate common law rules. But the equal protection requirement places a substantive limit on legislative power, and it is the function of courts to determine when the exercise of such power has transgressed constitutional bounds.

6. Fairness for defendants and the prompt assertion of claims are proper legislative concerns, and legislation must often favor a segment of society over others.

7. A court should not substitute its view of wise or fair legislative policy for that of the duly elected representatives of the people. But the question of whether all persons similarly circumstanced have been treated alike is one reserved for judicial determination.

8. A bestowal of immunity on the basis of construction industry membership or alliance does not rest upon some reasonable consideration of differences (between the classes under the same circumstances), which have a fair and substantial relation to legislation whose objects are fairness to putative tortfeasors and the prompt assertion of claims.

Raymond J. Tam, Honolulu (Henry N. Kitamura, Honolulu, with him on the briefs; Shim, Sigal, Tam & Naito, Honolulu, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellant.

John A. Roney, Honolulu (Grant K. Kidani, Honolulu, with him on answering briefs; Stubenberg & Roney, Honolulu, of counsel), for defendant-appellant Clark Equipment Co.

Michiro Iwanaga, Honolulu (Wayne M. Sakai, John D. Thomas, Jr., and Earl T. Sato, Honolulu, on answering brief; Burke, Ashford, Sakai, McPheeters, Bordner & Gilardy, Honolulu, of counsel), for defendant and third-party defendant-appellee Industrial Welding, Inc.

Bruce C. Bigelow, Honolulu (Wesley W. Ichida and David M. Louie, Honolulu, with him on answering brief; Case, Kay & Lynch, Honolulu, of counsel), for defendant-appellee Architects Hawaii Limited.

George W. Brandt and Thomas E. Cook, Honolulu (Lyons, Hagerman & Brandt, Honolulu, of counsel), for defendant and third-party plaintiff-appellee Thoht Construction, Inc., on answering brief.

Before RICHARDSON, C. J., LUM and NAKAMURA, JJ., and Retired Justices OGATA and MENOR assigned by reason of vacancies.

NAKAMURA, Justice.

The appellants in this interlocutory appeal are the plaintiff and one of the putative joint tortfeasors in a negligence action; the appellees are the other alleged joint tortfeasors who were awarded summary judgments pursuant to HRS § 657-8, which we considered in an earlier form and declared invalid in Fujioka v. Kam, 55 Haw. 7, 514 P.2d 568 (1973). Though the statute has since been extensively amended, we nevertheless conclude it does not pass constitutional muster for the same reason-it breaches "the equal protection guaranty." Id. at 13, 514 P.2d at 572.

I.

A.

Plaintiff-appellant Derek Shibuya (Plaintiff) sustained serious injuries on December 8, 1975 while operating a forklift at the bottling plant of his employer, Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Honolulu, Inc. (Coca-Cola). He suffered the injuries when a metal grating covering a culvert became dislodged as the forklift traversed it and the truck turned over. The grating had been emplaced when the building was constructed approximately nine years prior to the incident.

Plaintiff instituted his action for damages in the Circuit Court of the First Circuit on December 5, 1977; he claimed the combined negligence of numerous tortfeasors was the cause of his injuries. The defendants named in the pleading were: Architects Hawaii Limited (Architects), the designer of the building and the supervising architect during its construction; Thoht Construction Inc. (Thoht), the general contractor for the construction; Reliance Steel Products Company (Reliance), the fabricator of the metal grating; and Clark Equipment Company (Clark), the manufacturer of the forklift. The complaint also alleged numerous other defendants whose identities had not yet been established were also negligent and accountable in part for plaintiff's injuries.

Thoht subsequently filed a third-party complaint against Coca-Cola, the owner of both the forklift implicated in plaintiff's accident and the building where it occurred, and Industrial Welding, Inc. (Industrial), the subcontractor who was responsible for the steel and metal work involved in the construction of the building. Thoht alleged Coca-Cola and Industrial were primarily responsible for the damages occasioned by plaintiff. The plaintiff thereupon amended his complaint to include Industrial as a named defendant.

After their responsive pleadings were filed, Architects, Thoht, and Industrial sought summary judgments; they averred, inter alia, that they were immune from actions for damages premised on negligence allegedly related to the construction of the bottling plant. HRS § 657-8, ¹ they claimed, freed them from such suits, as the accident that caused plaintiff's injuries occurred more than six years after the building was completed. The circuit court agreed, and summary judgments in favor of Architects, Thoht, and Industrial were entered. The court, however, allowed Plaintiff and Clark to seek interlocutory review of the judgments.

B.

Our revisitation of HRS § 657-8 begins with a recapitulation of the textual changes effected therein since Fujioka v. Kam, supra, where we held a statute that provided immunity from a negligence action after a lapse of six years for the designer and the builder of a building whose roof had collapsed and injured the plaintiff, but not for its owners, could not withstand constitutional scrutiny. ² Although we looked askance at the purpose of the law, ³ we nonetheless invalidated it on narrower equal protection grounds. For we also could perceive no "rational basis for treating the engineer and the contractor differently from the owners under the same circumstances." 55 Haw. at 12, 514 P.2d at 571.

Reading Fujioka v. Kam as a condemnation of the statute on grounds of "underinclusiveness", the legislature amended HRS § 657-8 in the following legislative session to include "the owner of the real property or any other person having an interest therein or in the improvement" within the class of persons subject to its special protection. S.L.H.1974, c. 73. ⁴ And the six-year limitation period was modified so it would commence with the completion of the improvement, rather than the time when the services in question were performed by the professional or the contractor. Id. But the section was also made inapplicable to suits for damages based on the negligence of the owner or any other person with an interest in the property or "improvement in the repair or maintenance of the improvement." Id. The circuit court applied the 1974 version of HRS § 657-8 in awarding appellees summary judgments.

The section has been subjected to substantial alteration subsequent to the entry of the judgments. See S.L.H.1979, c. 185, § 1; S.L.H.1980, c. 70, § 2 and c. 232, § 34. While these textual changes were effected in 1979 and 1980, they are pertinent because they were given retrospective effect by the legislature and would apply to the case upon its remand for trial if their validity is sustained. ⁵

The primary purpose of the 1979 amendments as stated by the legislature was "to provide protection by law, not presently afforded, to manufacturers, materialmen and persons constructing or repairing any real property, against an action for damages based on such construction." Hse.Stand.Comm.Rep.No.618, in 1979 House Journal, at 1432. The intention was "to have the statute apply to all persons who can, by a sensible reading of the words, be brought within its ambit." Sen.Stand.Comm.Rep...