Court Opinion

ID: 9538906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 07:43:44.696182+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:58:14.458806
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION OF
CIRCUIT JUDGE LANHAM
I concur in the majority decision except with respect to the interest rate to be applied to blight of summons damages, or for interest at a reasonable rate on the final award from the date of the taking until payment is made, with which I dissent. It is true that HRS § 101-25 does provide that if payment of final judgment is delayed for more than thirty days then “interest shall be added at the rate of five percent a year”, and HRS § 101-33 provides that:
the final judgment shall include, as part of the just compensation and damages awarded, interest at the rate provided in section 101-25 . . . .
I agree with the majority opinion that it was undoubtedly the intention of the legislature that this interest rate of five percent also apply to the period of time between the date of summons and the order of possession.
I would hold, however, that the government must pay the legal interest rate of six percent as set forth in § 478-1 for its citizens in general in order to meet the test of the Constitution’s requirement of “just compensation”. See City and County of Honolulu v. Tam See, 40 Haw. 429, 431 (1953). The legal rate of six percent set forth in § 478-1 is that which controls most transactions when “there is no express written contract fixing a different rate of interest”, and this rate applies to the people generally in their ordinary transactions, and also garnishment proceeding (HRS § 652-4), judgments (HRS § 478-2), and perhaps other items which *399further research would reveal. Also, it is noted that the State had once set the interest rate on non-taxable county and municipal bonds at a “rate or rates not exceeding five percent a year” but found it necessary to amend such rate in 1969 to a “rate or rates not exceeding seven percentum per annum”. HRS § 47-7 (Supp. 1972). Interest rates payable to the State on various delinquent tax returns are variable but the least is two-thirds percent per month. It seems to me, therefore, that the State has set six percent per year as the minimum fair interest return.
I would hold that the government having in HRS § 478-1 established six percent as being the fair minimum amount of interest to be paid in the absence of written agreements to the contrary, cannot, consistent with the “just compensation” provision of Article I, Section 18 of our State Constitution, apply a different rate to itself than applies to the public in general without any reasonable basis therefor. (For analagous principle see Service v. Dulles, 354 U.S. 363 (1957).) Of course, where the government is consenting to be sued, or where an interest rate is set as a partial penalty, this concept would not apply, but where “just compensation” is involved, equality of treatment is one element in the consideration of what is “just”.