Kaiman Realty, Inc. v. Carmichael, 65 Haw. 637, 655 P.2d 872 (Haw. 1982)
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify against the cited opinion.
- Citation: 65 Haw. 637, 655 P.2d 872 (1982); 1982 Haw. LEXIS 254. (A related later proceeding is reported at 66 Haw. 103, 659 P.2d 63 (1983).)
- Court / Year: Supreme Court of Hawaii, 1982.
- Topic tags: forfeiture · specific_performance · relief_from_forfeiture
- Facts: A real-estate sale dispute over a defaulting buyer’s remedies where the seller proposed to cancel the agreement and refund the buyer’s deposit. (The full opinion text was not directly retrievable this pass; facts are reconstructed from two retrieved secondary sources by a Hawaii real-estate practitioner that cite the opinion with pincites — see needs_verification below.)
- Holding: Kaiman belongs to the Hawaii specific-performance / relief-from- forfeiture line: a defaulting buyer may be entitled to specific performance — committed to the equitable discretion of the trial judge — even where the seller offers to cancel and refund the buyer’s deposit, so long as the buyer’s breach did not involve gross negligence or bad faith. The retrieved sources group Kaiman with jenkins-v-wise-1978, Shanghai Investment Co. v. Alteka Co. (2000), and Scotella v. Osgood (1983) on that proposition. The sources do not attribute the Gomez “reasonable-relationship-to-actual-damages” liquidated-damages holding to Kaiman; that test is sourced to gomez-v-pagaduan-1980 (and Shanghai), with Kaiman appearing only in a “see also” string. (Precise Kaiman holding language / disposition: needs_verification — full opinion not retrieved.)
- Reasoning: Consistent with jenkins-v-wise-1978, Hawaii relieves a good-faith defaulting buyer from forfeiture and may decree specific performance; a seller cannot defeat that relief merely by offering to return the deposit. (Reasoning detail beyond this is needs_verification pending retrieval of the opinion.)
- Practical impact for CFD operators/buyers: Kaiman reinforces that a Hawaii seller cannot reliably end a good-faith defaulting buyer’s interest by tendering a refund of payments; the buyer may seek specific performance in the trial court’s discretion. It is part of the same anti-forfeiture / relief-from-forfeiture line as Jenkins, not a stand-alone liquidated-damages holding.
- Good-law status: Good law; part of the still-followed Hawaii relief-from-forfeiture / specific-performance line (cited alongside Jenkins, Shanghai Inv. Co. v. Alteka Co., 92 Hawai’i 482 (2000), and Scotella v. Osgood, 4 Haw. App. 20, 659 P.2d 73 (1983)).
- Source (retrieved): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1177742/kaiman-realty-inc-v-carmichael/ (CourtListener index entry — full opinion text not rendered/retrievable this pass). Holding characterization sourced to two retrieved Iwamoto articles (The Practical Real Estate Lawyer): Hawaii Purchase and Sale Issues for Buyers, https://www.honolulu-lawyers.com/static/2023/10/prel1803_iwamoto.pdf (groups Kaiman with Jenkins/Shanghai/Scotella on the buyer’s specific-performance-despite-refund point), and Liquidated Damages in Hawaii Real Estate Purchase and Sale Agreements (Sept. 2019), https://www.honolulu-lawyers.com/static/2023/10/prel1909_iwamoto.pdf (cites Kaiman only in a “see also” string; attributes the reasonable-relationship LDC test to Gomez/Shanghai, not Kaiman). · Verified: 2026-06-10 (citation [65 Haw. 637; 655 P.2d 872] and 1982 confirmed via the two cited articles). needs_verification: full Kaiman opinion text — exact holding language and disposition — not directly retrieved; characterization above rests on the two secondary sources, which support the specific-performance/relief-from- forfeiture framing rather than a stand-alone liquidated-damages holding.
Jurisdictions that follow / cite: hawaii
Disclaimer. Legal information, not legal advice. Confirm the opinion is still good law before relying on it.