Hawaii's World
By A.A. Smyser
Thursday, May 9, 1996
If Governor Cayetano signs SB 2993, a 283-page revision of our Probate Code, we will catch up with 25 other states next Jan. 1. We will at last give our consumers a fair shake in handling inheritances. It's a significant answer to those who say the Legislature did nothing.
SB 2993 takes the courts out of all but a small role in settling most estates. An initial filing of a death certificate and a will can be all that's required except in contested cases.
It will allow most distributions of inheritances to be completed in six months instead of two years. It will give more money to inheritors, less to legal red tape.
It will make unnecessary the living trusts created just to avoid court probate hassles and costs. That's about 60 percent of them.
It will permit the courts to save time and personnel, a government downsizing that benefits everybody.
SB 2993 does adapt Hawaii law to the National Uniform Probate Code but with special modifications to cover Hawaii customs, such as ohana or intra-family adoptions.
The changes were carefully developed over the past few years by a state Supreme Court-appointed committee of four judges and four attorneys. There was no significant opposition whatever when Chief Justice Ronald Moon presented them to the Legislature. Circuit Judge Ronald Ibarra of Kona chaired the committee.
In turn, the Senate Judiciary Committee report on what changes were made by the Legislature - mostly technical ones - is so wonderfully clear and detailed it should be a model, too. Sen. Rey Graulty wrote that the goal was to help lawyers fully understand the changes in cases where there is litigation. House Judiciary Chairman Terrance Tom OK'd the changes with a joke to the effect that "the dead bill is alive."
Carroll Taylor, a private Honolulu attorney, had long been dismayed by a phony probate "reform" adopted here in 1976. He gave hundreds of volunteer hours to the cause. He also successfully proposed an added safeguard to the national code. Non-family members will have to notify the family before they can file a will.
I told Taylor he deserves a gold star. In that case, he said, give two to University of Hawaii Professor Randall Roth, who initiated the reform movement in 1990. It is a fine example, Taylor said, of the law school fulfilling its public service function.
THE law school made Richard Wellman, the national executive director for uniform probate reform,a guest professor in 1990. His harsh words were the ones quoted in my first paragraph. He has returned several times from his base at the University of Georgia Law School to consult with the local reform committee and supporters.
The American Association of Retired Persons boasts 100,000 members in Hawaii. It gave major support, spearheaded by its legislative chairwoman, Laura Manis, and backed by its national staff. AARP brought Wellman back for wrap-up consultations and a public appearance last September.
The court committee didn't duck publicity but got little. Its careful work persuaded Chief Justice Moon and the key legislative chairmen, Graulty and Tom, that the cause is just. In the end they won in a walk. It's time to shout about it.