Title: Lighter v. Hara

State: hawaii

Issuer: Hawaii Supreme Court

Document:

LAW LIBRARY

No. 29943
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF HAWAI'T

ERIC AARON LIGHTER, Petitioner,
THE HONORABLE GLENN S. HARA, JUOGE OF THE CIRCUIT COURT

OF THE THIRD CIRCUIT, STATE OF HAWAI'I; RONALD ALAN OBER;
LESLIE W. BROWN; ‘and JAMES RIETVELD, Respondent

Jedd.

 

G1 ORY €1 on

ORIGINAL PROCEEDING
(CIVIL NO. 03-1-0103)

 

(By: Moon, ¢.J., Nakayanay Atcba, and Duffy, J3f)and

‘Intermediate Court of Appeals Judge Watanabe

in place of Aecktenvald, J. recused)

Upon consideration of the petition for a weit of
mandamus filed by petitioner Eric Aaron Lighter (petitioner) on
July 20, 2009 and the papers in support, it appears that
petitioner is seeking a ruling from this court that petitioner’ s
January 11, 2006 motion te compel discovery be ruled upon and
granted, The record indicates that the motion was granted on
January 30, 2006 by the Circuit Court of the Third Circuit, the
Honorable Gregg Nakamura (Judge Nakamura) presiding, but the
granting of the motion was set aside on May 25, 2006. Petitioner
grant” the motion on July 22, 2006,

 

asked Judge Nakamura to
but the request was by an unfiled letter, not by motion made
pursuant to Hawai'l Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 7(b) (1). Judge
Nakamura was not obliged to act on the July 22, 2006 letter
request that was not filed in Civil No, 03-1-0103. Petitioner
did not properly request a ruling on the motion to compel
discovery until the filing of petitioner’s June 23, 2009 request

directed to the respondent judge, who replaced Judge Nakamura as

aa
presiding judge in 2009. Defendant Ronald Ober responded to the

 

June 23,

 

09 request on June 30, 2009 and petitioner replied to

the response on July 6, 2009. Two weeks later, on July 20,

 

00,
petitioner filed the instant petition for a writ of mandamus
directing the respondent judge to rule on the June 23, 2009
request. The passage of two weeks after the filing of the July

6, 2009 reply is not an unreasonable period of time for ruling on

 

ne June 23, 2009 request and does not demonstrate that the
respondent judge is refusing to rule on the June 23, 2009
request. Therefore, petitioner is not entitled to mandamus
relief. See Kema v. Gaddis, 91 Hawai'i 200, 204, 982 P.24 334,
338 (1999) (A writ of mandamus is an extraordinary remedy that
will not issue unless the petitioner demonstrates a clear and
indisputable right to relief and 2 lack of alternative means to
redress adequately the alleged wrong or obtain the requested
action.). Accordingly,

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the petition for a writ of
mandamus is denied.

DATED: Honolulu, Hawai'i, August 13, 2009.

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