Measures before the Legislature would appropriate more than $1 million to settle claims against the state — $650,000 of which would go toward a lawsuit over the 2014 death of a teenager who was riding a scooter on a Likelike Highway onramp.
The settlement and others are being proposed under Senate Bill 2844 Opens in a new tab and its companion House Bill 2288, Opens in a new tab which appropriate funds for claims against the state Department of Public Safety, Department of Land and Natural Resources, Department of Education and Department of Transportation.
The largest settlement for $650,000, involves the death of 16-year-old Nicolette Maile Vares, who was riding a scooter when she lost control and crashed into a guardrail on the Likelike Highway onramp headed toward the H-3.
Vares’ father, Nick Vares, sued the state alleging signage was inadequate to warn his daughter of the ramp’s “hairpin turn” and failed to meet traffic engineering standards. Vares was riding a motorcycle behind Nicolette at the time of the crash on March 20, 2014.
John Choi, the lawyer for the Vares family, said in court documents the full view of the dangerous nature of the hairpin curve is blocked by a large forest. “The forest prevents motorists from perceiving the drastic change of direction caused by the abrupt hairpin curve,” he said in court documents.
Choi also cited the cases of three other motorists who died in the same area while making the same turn within a year of Nicolette Maile Vares’ death.
A motor vehicle accident report filed in the case said the crash was caused by Vares’ misjudgment, alleging she drove too fast for the highway conditions and failed to stay in her lane. The settlement was reached through mediation.
The bills before the Legislature would also cover the $300,000 settlement of a lawsuit in a 2017 crash in Hilo. In that case, Helen Hayselden and Joan Mayo hit a boulder in the middle of the road while driving north on Route 19 in Maulua Gulch at 5 a.m. Feb. 24, 2013.
Mayo didn’t have time to avoid the crash because “the boulder was lying in the subject highway around a blind, unilluminated corner, and was not readily visible in the dark as she approached,” according to court documents.
Both suffered serious injuries with medical costs of $10,000 combined, according to court records.
The state “had actual notice of the rock fall hazards and related debris on the subject highway at least since 1994-1995 because the Hawaii state Legislature has regularly appropriated funds for rockfall mitigation since this time for this and other roadways, according to court records.”
Another settlement that would be covered by appropriated funds involves a
Kalani High School special-
education student who almost drowned in a school pool during a physical education class in 2017. The student could not swim and was told to stay in the shallow end of the pool but was unattended by an adult.
There were no physical dividers blocking off the deep end of the pool, and no flotation devices provided to nonswimmers, according to testimony from the state Attorney General’s Office. The child reached the deep end of the pool and was underwater for an estimated three to four minutes, and had to be revived by the Department of Education swim instructor.
The settlement in that case is for $130,000.
The state has also been ordered to pay $40,000 in damages in the case of a Kauai Community Correctional Center inmate who in 2011 was not allowed by staff nurses to take pain medication that had been prescribed to him by his personal physician.
State Department of Public Safety policy does not allow for the use of narcotics in jail, according to testimony by the Attorney General’s Office.
