The Okada Trucking decision issued by the Hawaii Supreme court in January 2002, changed drastically the scope of work that could be legally self-performed by general contractors licensed in the State of Hawaii.  Whereas formerly, general contractors could self-perform nearly all of the work covered by C-specialty licenses with some notable exceptions (work that required…

Reviewing legislative updates for the past session, I checked on the status of an act I previously noted was making its way through the legislature — the bill was HB 1969, and as originally crafted, did not make a lot of sense.  HB 1969 was intended to apply the  prompt payment provisions currently applicable…

Hawaii's contractor licensing laws already make it a criminal misdemeanor to act as if one is a licensed contractor without a contractors' license.  However, the penalty is up to one year in prison and it is not, as stated above, a felony.  In a recent ICA decision, the court upheld a trial court's indictment of an…