Law in the Time of Corona

JOANNA L. GROSSMAN, LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMAN

SMU Dedman School of Law professor Joanna L. Grossman and Stanford law professor Lawrence M. Friedman discuss the implications of COVID-19 on the execution of wills and marriage. Grossman and Friedman argue that the COVID-19 crisis demonstrates how quickly and universally Americans rush into court, demanding from judges legal solutions to ethical, political, and social issues.

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Botelho v. Atlas Recycling Center, LLC.

Docket: SCWC-16-0000349

Opinion Date: May 4, 2020

Judge: Sabrina S. McKenna

Areas of Law: Labor & Employment Law, Personal Injury

The Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the intermediate court of appeal (ICA) and the Labor and Industrial Relations Appeals Board's (LIRAB) award of attorney's fees to Stanford Masui for his representation of Reginald Botelho in a workers' compensation case, holding that the ICA erred to the extent it held that Haw. Rev. Stat. 386-94 authorizes LIRAB to predetermine an attorney's hourly rate and erred in holding that LIRAB provided an adequate explanation for its reduction of Masui's requested attorney's fee. Masui submitted a request for attorney's fees requesting an hourly rate of $325. LIRAB approved the request but reduced Masui's hourly rate to $165. The ICA affirmed. The Supreme Court vacated the ICA's judgment, holding (1) under section 386-94 LIRAB is not authorized to predetermine a workers' compensation attorney's authorized houry rate to be applied to that attorney's future cases; (2) the ICA did not err in interpreting section 386-94 as granting LIRAB discretion to vary the requesting attorney's hourly billing rate to arrive at an award of reasonable attorney's fees; and (3) the ICA erred in concluding that LIRAB provided an adequate explanation for its reduction of the requested attorney's fees, as required by McLaren v. Paradise Inn Hawai'i LLC, 321 P.3d 671 (2014).