The state is poised to pay out more than $6 million in settlements for 23 separate legal claims this year.
Each year, the Hawai‘i State Legislature passes a measure appropriating state funds to settle various legal claims and judgments against the state. This year, that measure is House Bill 990, which passed its third and final reading in the Senate on Tuesday.
The bill initially was to settle only eight claims, for a total appropriation of $2.3 million. However, since the bill’s introduction in January, 15 additional claims were settled, nearly tripling the ask to just over $6.5 million.
The costliest settlements stemmed from fatal traffic incidents. The largest, for $1.75 million, arose from a 2022 crash wherein a Department of Education special education teacher attempted to make a U-turn on Highway 19 on Hawai‘i Island.
According to a report by the Department of the Attorney General, the teacher found the road too narrow to complete the maneuver and instead attempted to make a three-point turn, in the process blocking both lanes of the highway. While the teacher attempted this, a motorcyclist, Michael Ambrose, struck the teacher’s vehicle, a collision that was ultimately fatal for Ambrose.
Ambrose’s widow filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the teacher and the Department of Education, arguing that the teacher caused the accident while in the course of her work for the DOE — the teacher attempted the U-turn in the first place while bringing DOE supplies to a summer camp for special needs students.
The next-largest settlement, for $1.07 million, originated from a 2019 pedestrian fatality at the intersection between the Farrington Highway and Linakola Street in Mā‘ili. Two pedestrians attempted to cross the highway via a crosswalk when they were struck by a northbound vehicle. One of the victims, Juan Jimmie Aldeguer, Jr. landed across the centerline and was then struck by a southbound vehicle, dying as a result.
Aldeguer’s father sued the state Department of Transportation, alleging that the design of the crosswalk presented a hazard to pedestrians.
In fact, the DOT had already developed in 2017 a plan to redesign that transit corridor to remove several unsignalized crosswalks, including the Farrington/Linakola crossing, but the accident occurred before that work could begin.
Also included among the settlements is a $275,000 payment to James Sean Shields, who reportedly suffered a heart attack shortly after the 2018 ballistic missile false alarm. Shields, who was 51 at the time, sued the state in 2018, several months after he experienced cardiac arrest following the infamous message by the Hawai‘i Emergency Management Agency warning all Hawai‘i residents to seek immediate shelter in the face of an imminent ballistic missile threat.
Toni Schwartz, spokesperson for the Department of the Attorney General, confirmed via email to the Aloha State Daily that there are no other known lawsuits against the state related to the false missile alert.
Additionally, six claims came from people or companies requesting that the state reissue a previously awarded check that had been misplaced or lost. Together, these claims totaled more than $713,000, with one claimant, Maui Kupono Builders LLC, having apparently mislaid two checks together valuing more than $600,000.
According to the text of the bill and supporting testimony by the Attorney General's office, the remainder of the settlements include:
• $750,000 to the family of Delmar Espejo, who, in 2019, was accosted by Deputy Sheriff Gregory Bergman at the Hawai‘i State Capitol for drinking vodka in public. Espejo refused to comply with Bergman’s requests to pour out the vodka, leading to a physical altercation that ended with Bergman fatally shooting Espejo. Espejo’s family asserted that Bergman used excessive force and that the officer was not properly trained or supervised.
• $450,000 to Jennifer Reber, who in 2021 slipped while hiking on a state park trail on Kaua‘i and fell on a spike of rebar, which impaled her through the thigh, requiring reconstructive surgery and physical therapy.
• $400,000 to Royal Contracting Company, Ltd., which was contracted to grade a Kapolei subdivision for the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. Because DHHL’s bid documents did not clearly specify the amount of fill required, the contractor alleged in a 2016 lawsuit that it imported additional, unneeded fill at its own expense.
• $330,000 to three former students at the Highlands Intermediate School, who were reportedly subjected to sexual abuse by a school security guard in the mid-1970s and sued the state in 2020.
• $175,000 to the estate of Bruce Perdue, who was killed in a 2012 traffic accident on the Kuhio Highway on Kaua‘i. Perdue was reportedly speeding, drove off the paved shoulder and struck a utility pole. His family sued the state for negligent design of the highway, which, they argued, should have installed barriers protecting drivers from striking the pole or used other safety measures, particularly after two prior utility pole accidents.
• $150,000 to Katherine Balatico, former principal of Stevenson Middle School, who reported receiving sexually threatening messages from an unknown sender in 2020 and 2021, leading the Department of Education to implement various additional security measures before eventually terminating those measures and announcing that Balatico’s position was vacant. Balatico sued, arguing that her employment had been terminated in retaliation for reporting sexual harassment, something prohibited under Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1974.
• $100,000 to Child Evangelism Fellowship of Hawai‘i, after the DOE reportedly charged the nonprofit rental fees to use DOE facilities, something it did not do for other organizations. This, the Fellowship argued, violates the First Amendment’s free exercise clause and the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.
• $100,000 to Brenda Osmer, who was hiking in Waimea Canyon State Park on Kaua‘i in 2023 when she slipped on a steel plate covering a small drainage ditch, fracturing her femur, which required an implanted metal plate to repair.
• $90,000 to Leanne Rosa, a former judicial assistant at the Fifth Circuit Court on Kaua‘i, who, she alleged, was subjected to “a sexualized hug and unwanted and unwelcome touching” on multiple occasions by Chief Judge Randal Valenciano in 2015 and between 2018 and 2023.
• $75,000 to Jake Ferreira, a student at Castle High School in 2021, when a DOE teacher asked him to help set up a mechanical log splitter during class, which led to Ferreria’s finger being severed.
• $70,000 to Lisa Ann Daguro, who in 2018 tripped and fell on an uneven portion of sidewalk on Punchbowl Street in Honolulu, caused by roots from a nearby monkeypod tree.
• $32,632.85 to Deborah Kwan, a former public information officer with the state Department of Taxation, who requested leave in late 2019 to fulfill duties for the Air National Guard. That request was denied and her contract was not renewed, something she claimed was retaliatory because of her National Guard involvement.
• $28,500 to Billy Peter, a citizen of the Federated States of Micronesia, who was denied a firearm permit because of his immigration status, which he argued violates both the Second Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
• $5,000 to Paul Aker, who submitted four information requests to HIEMA regarding the Maui wildfires in 2023 but received no response. HIEMA reportedly did not learn of those requests until the lawsuit was filed and was unable to satisfy the requests until after the deadlines set by the Uniform Information Practices Act. The settlement covers Aker’s attorneys’ fees.
