Hawaii's Supreme Court has rejected an appeal that was holding up the first payments to victims of the August 8, 2023 Lahaina wildfire, ruling on September 30 that a Maui circuit judge acted within his authority when he capped attorney fees well below what state law otherwise allows. The decision clears the final legal obstacle standing between roughly $1.1 billion already sitting in a settlement trust account and the 21,750 victims who are owed a share of it.
The ruling, as reported by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, came down against three attorneys representing more than 1,000 victims and one fire victim who lost his home in Lahaina, all of whom had challenged Maui Circuit Judge Peter Cahill's order limiting what lawyers can collect from the $4 billion litigation settlement. In the opinion, authored by Justice Todd Eddins, the court found that Judge Cahill retained ongoing authority to manage attorney fees because the special judicial proceeding created after the disaster had never formally closed, according to Courthouse News. The appellants had argued that Cahill lost jurisdiction once individual lawsuits were dismissed.
The August 2023 fire killed 102 people and destroyed most of Lahaina, and the resulting wave of litigation produced a global settlement intended to avoid years more of courtroom fights. The appeal, filed in early August, argued that Cahill's fee order was unlawful, unconstitutional, and an abuse of discretion. Attorneys Anthony Ranken, Alex Edrenkin, John Thickstun, and fire victim Michael Adrian Kahaleala Bates brought the challenge, with Maui lawyer Samuel Shnider presenting oral arguments on their behalf at a September 15 hearing.
Why the Fee Caps Matter So Much
Hawaii Revised Statutes § 607-15.5 addresses attorney fees in tort actions, while § 607-14 addresses assumpsit actions, as outlined by Justia Law. In this litigation, the general statutory cap was 25 percent of a judgment. Had that full statutory cap applied, attorneys could have collected as much as $1 billion from the settlement. Instead, Cahill set general fees ranging from 3 percent to 10 percent of each plaintiff's recovery — a 3 percent fee for most attorneys retained after the August 2024 settlement, up to 8.33 percent for those retained earlier, and up to 10 percent for lawyers whose bellwether cases were headed to trial before the deal was struck. Attorneys can seek as much as 12.5 percent only in extraordinary circumstances. Total attorney fees under that structure are estimated at roughly $200 million, or about 5 percent of the settlement.
Cahill also set aside $222 million in a Common Benefit Fund to compensate attorneys whose work benefited all plaintiffs, to be paid out in the second, third and fourth years of settlement distributions and overseen by a review board of three retired judges. The Supreme Court did strike down three provisions tied to that fund — one making awards unappealable, another canceling an award if appealed, and a third freezing future payments during an appeal — but held that invalidating those conditions does not unravel the broader fee order. The fee fund still exists, the fee schedule still stands, and the review board still performs its role, the court held.
A Fight Among Lawyers, Not Victims Versus Defendants
Cynthia Wong, who argued that Cahill's ruling appropriately balanced attorney and victim recoveries, said the decision will benefit all 21,750 claimants in the settlement, whose total damage claims are estimated between $12 billion and $15 billion. She said claims administrators are expected to begin issuing payments within two months. The dispute, as one account from Aloha State Daily framed it, was not between victims and defendants but an internal battle over fee distribution between plaintiff attorneys and the court's equitable oversight of the settlement.
Justices Sabrina McKenna and Lisa Ginoza joined the opinion, along with substitute justices Kevin Morikone and Taryn Tomasa; Chief Justice Vladimir Devens was absent due to a vacancy and recusal. The $4 billion settlement is being paid out in four equal annual installments by seven defendants — Hawaiian Electric Co., the State of Hawaii, Kamehameha Schools, Spectrum Oceanic LLC, Hawaiian Telcom, West Maui Land Co. affiliates, and Maui County — and a little over $1.1 billion is already sitting in the settlement trust account awaiting distribution.
How the Money Breaks Down
Hawaiian Electric is contributing the largest share of the settlement at $1.99 billion, followed by Kamehameha Schools at $872.5 million and the State of Hawaii at $807 million, according to figures reported by Honolulu Civil Beat. Hawaii Governor Josh Green signed House Bill 1001 into law as Act 301 in July 2025, creating the Maui Wildfires Settlement Trust Fund and appropriating the state's $807 million share to be paid out over four years, per a release from the Office of the Governor. Hawaiian Electric authorized its first $479 million annual installment into trust on April 10, using capital raised through a September 2024 equity offering after legal conditions tied to insurer subrogation claims were cleared.
Those insurer conditions had themselves nearly derailed the entire settlement. In February 2025, the Hawaii Supreme Court issued a unanimous ruling blocking more than 200 insurance companies from filing independent lawsuits against wildfire defendants, requiring them instead to seek reimbursement through statutory liens, the Associated Press reported at the time. Within the $4.037 billion global agreement, $135 million was set aside specifically for a Class Settlement Fund covering class member payouts, legal fees, and administrative costs, with the remainder allocated to the Individual Settlement Fund; more than 90,000 individual damage claims were submitted across the litigation.
Separate from this litigation settlement, the state-administered One ʻOhana Fund has delivered more than $155.7 million to 162 death and serious injury claimants as of August, offering $1.5 million per family in exchange for liability waivers. Video evidence and the possibility of a utility-line ignition have figured in accounts of how the Lahaina fire began.
