Court Opinion

ID: 9609049
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:21:48.151782+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:48.477652
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING OPINION OF NAKAMURA, J.
The court rules the plaintiff-appellant has standing to challenge the action of the trustee because (1) the trustee is a government agency that does not file periodic accounts of its stewardship and will not seek instructions of the court despite the existence of a genuine controversy regarding its power to lease trust lands, (2) the attorney general has actively joined in supporting the alleged breach of trust, and (3) the citizens would be left without protection or a remedy if the suit were not allowed. It then holds the trust documents expressly forbid the leasing of the trust lands.
I join in the court’s judgment on this understanding of the scope of the opinion and on the further understanding that the standing requirements for breach of trust suits have not been amended in any other way. I also do not read the opinion as altering the general rule that “ ‘[w]here discretion is conferred upon the trustee with respect to the exercise of a power, its exercise is not subject to control by the court, except to prevent an abuse by the trustee of his discretion.’ Restatement (Second) of Trusts § 187 (1959); see also Miller v. First Hawaiian Bank, 61 Haw. 346, 351, 604 P.2d 39, 43 (1979) (citing § 187); Dowsett v. Hawaiian Trust Co., 47 Haw. 577, 581, 393 P.2d 89, 93 (1964) (quoting § 187); In re Estate of Campbell, 42 Haw. 586, 603-04 (1958) (also quoting § 187).” Takabuki v. Ching, 67 Haw. 515, 530, 695 P.2d 319, 328 (1985) (quoting Restatement, supra).