Opinion ID: 1179849
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: bad faith settlement conduct

Text: Plaintiffs allege that they should have been allowed to claim punitive damages because of Pacesetter's bad faith conduct during the course of settlement negotiations. They claim that during settlement negotiations, Pacesetter's associate general counsel made knowing misrepresentations that induced them to refrain from seeking legal counsel until the two-year personal injury statute of limitations under HRS § 657-7 had run on their claims. Plaintiffs maintain that all the elements of common law fraud were established by Pacesetter's conduct. An action based on fraud will not lie where plaintiff has suffered no injury or damage. Hawaii's Thousand Friends v. Anderson, 70 Haw. 276, 286, 768 P.2d 1293, 1301 (1989) (to support a finding of fraud there must be clear and convincing evidence that plaintiff suffered substantial pecuniary damage). In this case, plaintiffs claim that Pacesetter's alleged fraud injured them by luring them into delaying the filing of their action until the personal injury statute of limitations had run, depriving them of recovery under any theories subject to HRS § 657-7. We have held, however, that plaintiffs claims are governed by the statute of limitations set forth in HRS § 490:2-725 rather than HRS § 657-7. Plaintiffs have therefore suffered no injury due to Pacesetter's bad faith conduct, and the trial court correctly dismissed any of plaintiffs' claims based thereupon.