No. 28702 (Aug. 10, 2009)
Opinion pdf
OPINION OF THE COURT BY NAKAYAMA, J.
Petitioners/Plaintiffs-Appellees The Estate of Roger Roxas and The Golden Budha Corporation ("GBC") (collectively, "Petitioners") petition this court to review the Intermediate Court of Appeals' ("ICA's") March 5, 2009 judgment on appeal. The ICA's judgment was entered pursuant to its February 12, 2009 published opinion, Estate of Roxas v. Marcos ("Roxas II"), 120 Hawai‘i 123, 126, 202 P.3d 584, 587 (App. 2009), which reversed the first circuit court's ("circuit court's") July 24, 2007 order granting Petitioners' two May 8, 2007 motions to extend the second and fourth amended judgments. The ICA held that the circuit court erred in extending the Plaintiffs' second and fourth amended judgments because, under Hawai‘i Revised Statute ("HRS") § 657-5 (2006), "the August 28, 1996 [j]udgment is the 'original judgment' for purposes of this case and the limitation period for an extension commenced on its August 28, 1996 entry date." Roxas II, 120 Hawai‘i at 126, 202 P.3d at 587. We accepted Petitioners' application for a writ of certiorari, and oral argument was held on June 4, 2009.
Petitioners assert that the ICA gravely erred by interpreting "original judgment" of HRS § 657-5 as the "first judgment rendered by a court." Id. at 126, 202 P.3d at 587. They argue that this construction creates "an unreasonable result in cases in which more than one judgment is entered between different parties or as to different claims." Petitioners maintain that the limitations period on extending a judgment is ten years from the date that the judgment to be extended was first entered.
We hold that the "original judgment" of HRS § 657-5 refers to the judgment that creates the rights and responsibilities seeking to be extended, and, therefore, the circuit court did not err in extending the second and fourth amended judgments. Nevertheless, the circuit court erred when it extended the fourth amended judgment until September 5, 2021, because that date is beyond twenty years of the "original judgment," entered on June 26, 2000. Accordingly, we (1) vacate the ICA's March 5, 2009 judgment, (2) vacate the circuit court's July 24, 2007 order, to the extent that it granted Petitioners' motion to extend the fourth amended judgment until September 5, 2021, and (3) remand this case to the circuit court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. [footnotes omitted]