Hawaii high court lets lawyers keep $222M from Maui fire settlement

Hawaii's Supreme Court upheld most of a $222 million Common Benefit Fund carved out of the $4.037 billion Maui wildfire settlement to pay attorneys, three years after the Lahaina fire killed 102 people and became the deadliest U.S. wildfire in a century.

The justices rejected claims that the fund was an illegal taking or that it charged clients for lawyers they never hired, with Justice Todd Eddins writing there's 'no eleventh slice,' just a shared cost of assembling the settlement. They did strike three provisions that made fee awards unappealable and froze payments during any appeal, ruling government can't condition a benefit on surrendering a protected right.

The case returns to Second Circuit Judge Peter Cahill's court, where attorneys can now challenge their fee awards without having payments frozen. The fund, schedule, and review board all remain in place, with the board still processing applications.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.