Hawaii Wrongful Death Settlement Calculator
Estimate a wrongful death settlement under Hawaii law. The calculator applies this jurisdiction's own comparative fault rule and damages ceilings, and every figure below is the one our verified data holds, with the statute behind it and the date we checked it.
What Hawaii law does to your claim
Four things in state law shape a wrongful death claim: how long you have to file, who the state's wrongful death statute says brings the action, the state's comparative fault rule, and whether the state puts a ceiling on what a jury can award. Here is what we hold for this one.
Which deadline governs a death caused by a motor-vehicle crash in Hawaii is not established here. The two years published is the general wrongful-death period under HRS §§ 663-3 and 657-7. HRS § 431:10C-315(b), which can carry a Hawaii car-accident deadline past two years from the crash, says "No suit arising out of a motor vehicle accident shall be brought in tort more than the later of" two years after the accident or two years after the last payment of certain benefits, and its text does not mention a death. We have not established whether it reaches a wrongful-death action, and we hold nothing beyond the text. Treat the two years as the figure to work inside, and speak to a licensed Hawaii attorney well before it runs out.
Haw. Rev. Stat. §§ 663-3, 657-7·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Hawaii bars recovery if plaintiff is 51% or more at fault.
Haw. Rev. Stat. § 663-31·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Hawaii limits pain and suffering damages in a medical tort claim under Haw. Rev. Stat. § 663-8.7, and we hold that figure. It is not applied here because the statute caps pain and suffering specifically and writes other non-economic categories out of that definition, while this field is the ceiling our calculator would put on your non-economic damages as a whole. Applying it would cap more than Hawaii caps, and the estimate would come out low. The figure and its citation are on the source record. Ask a Hawaii attorney which of your damages the limit actually reaches.
The deceased's legal representative, or any of the persons subsection (b) names, may sue the person who caused or is responsible for the death. The action is maintained on behalf of those persons, though the legal representative may recover for the estate the reasonable expenses of the last illness and burial. The persons named are the surviving spouse, reciprocal beneficiary, children, father and mother, and anyone wholly or partly dependent on the deceased. Haw. Rev. Stat. § 663-3(a), (b) reads: “(a) When the death of a person is caused by the wrongful act, neglect, or default of any person, the deceased's legal representative, or any of the persons enumerated in subsection (b), may maintain an action against the person causing the death or against the person responsible for the death. The action shall be maintained on behalf of the persons enumerated in subsection (b), except that the legal representative may recover on behalf of the estate the reasonable expenses of the deceased's last illness and burial.” and “by the surviving spouse, reciprocal beneficiary, children, father, mother, and by any person wholly or partly dependent upon the deceased person.” We read this statute only, so it is not a complete account of Hawaii wrongful death law, and how courts have applied it or divided a recovery is not stated here. Read from the Internet Archive's capture of the official page as it stood on 2026-10-19; an amendment after that date would not show in it.
Haw. Rev. Stat. § 663-3(a), (b)·Last reviewed 2026-10-19
None on record means our verified data holds no figure of this kind for this state. It is not a finding that no limit could apply to your claim.
Held, not published means our research established a limit for this state and we are not putting a figure on it here. The note under each one says which statute it is and what stops us. The amount and its source are on our record.
What partial fault costs you in Hawaii
The same claim, fracture with surgery, several months of recovery, run through the calculator above four times, with nothing changed but the share of fault assigned to the claimant. The numbers are the engine's output, not an editorial claim about what these cases are worth.
One case, run through the calculator above four times with only the claimant's share of fault changed, under Hawaii law. No coverage ceiling is applied, because we would be inventing the at-fault party's policy. These shares illustrate the rule; they are not an estimate of your own fault.
Every Hawaii deadline we hold
A claim can be more than one kind of case, and the clock is different for each. These are the Hawaii periods in our verified data, with the statute behind each one. A deadline is the outside limit, never a target, and other rules can shorten it.
Haw. Rev. Stat. § 657-7·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the personal injury calculatorHaw. Rev. Stat. § 657-7.3·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the medical malpractice calculatorWhich deadline governs a death caused by a motor-vehicle crash in Hawaii is not established here. The two years published is the general wrongful-death period under HRS §§ 663-3 and 657-7. HRS § 431:10C-315(b), which can carry a Hawaii car-accident deadline past two years from the crash, says "No suit arising out of a motor vehicle accident shall be brought in tort more than the later of" two years after the accident or two years after the last payment of certain benefits, and its text does not mention a death. We have not established whether it reaches a wrongful-death action, and we hold nothing beyond the text. Treat the two years as the figure to work inside, and speak to a licensed Hawaii attorney well before it runs out.
Haw. Rev. Stat. §§ 663-3, 657-7·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the wrongful death calculatorHaw. Rev. Stat. § 386-82·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the workers compensation calculatorHaw. Rev. Stat. § 657-7·Source retrieved 2026-07-27
Open the slip and fall calculatorHawaii's insurance code sets its own time limit for a motor-vehicle injury claim, HRS § 431:10C-315(b), beside the two-year general personal-injury period in HRS § 657-7. It reads: "No suit arising out of a motor vehicle accident shall be brought in tort more than the later of: (1) Two years after the date of the motor vehicle accident upon which the claim is based; (2) Two years after the date of the last payment of motor vehicle insurance or optional additional benefits; or (3) Two years after the date of the last payment of workers' compensation or public assistance benefits arising from the motor vehicle accident." Two years from the crash is therefore the EARLIEST your deadline can fall and not the deadline itself: where any of those benefits were still being paid after that point, the clock runs from the last payment, and only your own record of those payments fixes the later date. Its text does not say how it relates to HRS § 657-7, and HRS § 431:10C-306 limits which motor-vehicle injuries can be brought as a tort claim at all, so speak to a licensed Hawaii attorney before relying on either date.
Riding a motorcycle? This provision can reach a rider's claim in Hawaii only where a car or other motor vehicle was involved in the crash, and a crash that involved no motor vehicle runs on Hawaii's general personal-injury period instead. The motorcycle accident calculator shows the period a rider's claim in Hawaii is given, and why.
Riding a bicycle? This provision can reach a cyclist's claim in Hawaii only where a car or other motor vehicle was involved in the crash, and a crash that involved no motor vehicle runs on Hawaii's general personal-injury period instead. The bicycle accident calculator shows the period a cyclist's claim in Hawaii is given, and why.
HRS § 431:10C-315(b)·Last reviewed 2026-09-23
Open the motor vehicle claims calculatorHawaii against the rest of the country
Every count below is read from our state-law data across all 51 jurisdictions, so it moves when the data does. What you will not find here is an average settlement figure: the only one we could compute is a model, and a model presented as a measurement is not a fact.
- 24 of the 51 jurisdictions we track apply modified comparative negligence with a 51% bar, and Hawaii is one of them.
- Its 2 years to file is the same as the most common deadline in the country, which 32 jurisdictions use. Across the 51 jurisdictions the deadline for this case type runs from 1 year to 3 years.
- We have read the official text of 42 jurisdictions' wrongful death statutes. In 21 the personal representative brings the action, in 8 family members or the personal representative may, and the other 13 name a family member, a trustee or a representative, or name who benefits rather than who sues. Hawaii's is one of the 8 where family members or the personal representative may.
- 23 of the 51 jurisdictions limit medical malpractice non-economic damages in our data and Hawaii is not among them, so an estimate here is not held down by a ceiling we hold.
Comparisons are drawn from the legal levers that actually move a case value, not from closed-case data, which we do not hold. See the full methodology
Hawaii calculators
Hawaii Wrongful Death questions
Every document behind our state injury law figures, each linked with the date we last read it, is listed on our State Injury Law research sources page.