Report Title:

Appellate Jurisdiction

Description:

Authorizes immediate appeals from certain orders regarding injunctions and from denials of motions to dismiss based upon sovereign or absolute or qualified immunity. (SD1)

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

H.B. NO.

2380

TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2004

H.D. 1

STATE OF HAWAII

S.D. 1


 

A BILL FOR AN ACT

 

RELATING TO APPELLATE JURISDICTION.

 

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:

SECTION 1. The purpose of this Act is to authorize immediate appeals from certain orders regarding injunctions and from denials of sovereign, absolute, or qualified immunity, assuming such appeals were not already authorized or allowed.

SECTION 2. Section 641-1, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"§641-1 Appeals as of right or interlocutory, civil matters. (a) Appeals shall be allowed in civil matters from all final judgments, orders, or decrees of circuit and district courts and the land court, to the supreme court or to the intermediate appellate court, except as otherwise provided by law and subject to the authority of the intermediate appellate court to certify reassignment of a matter directly to the supreme court and subject to the authority of the supreme court to reassign a matter to itself from the intermediate appellate court.

(b) [Upon application made within the time provided by the rules of court,] Except for interlocutory appeals as a matter of right as provided in subsection (c), an appeal in a civil matter may be allowed by a circuit court in its discretion from an order denying a motion to dismiss or from any interlocutory judgment, order, or decree whenever the circuit court may think the same advisable for the speedy termination of litigation before it. The refusal of the circuit court to allow an appeal from an interlocutory judgment, order, or decree shall not be reviewable by any other court.

(c) Appeals shall be allowed from interlocutory orders of the circuit court and the land court that:

(1) Grant, continue, modify, refuse, or dissolve injunctions, or refuse to dissolve or modify injunctions, except that the court retains jurisdiction over the matter, permitting the court to grant, continue, modify, refuse or dissolve injunctions pending the outcome of the appeal; or

(2) Deny motions seeking dismissal, or judgment for the movant, based upon sovereign immunity or absolute or qualified immunity.

Appeals from interlocutory orders of the district court shall be allowed only under paragraph (2).

[(c)] (d) An application to the circuit court to permit an interlocutory appeal and any appeal shall be taken in the manner and within the time provided by the rules of court."

SECTION 3. Statutory material to be repealed is bracketed and stricken. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 4. This Act shall take effect upon its approval and shall apply fully to all cases filed on or after its effective date and all cases pending in the circuit and district courts and the land court for which no final judgment has been entered as of its effective date, to the extent permitted by law.