Gepaya v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.

Opinion of the Court by

ACOBA, J.

We hold that the Circuit Court of the First Circuit (the court) committed plain error in a Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 658-8 proceeding to confirm an arbitration award when it determined a legal question not decided by the arbitrators and modified the arbitration award accordingly. Unless the award was subject to review under the statutory grounds set forth in HRS § 658-9, or § 658-10, or either one of the two judicially recognized exceptions our appellate courts have adopted, the court was mandated to confirm the award according to its terms.

I

On December…