By Rob Shikina

A lobbyist for personal injury lawyers opposed the governor signing a bill yesterday that protects property owners from being sued by criminals injured on their property.

Before the law, felons or their families could sue property owners if they were injured or killed while committing a crime on the property.

"We're against immunity anyway, generally speaking, because there are laws that will protect you," said Robert Toyofuku, a lobbyist for the personal injury law group Hawaii Association for Justice.

But gun owners and other supporters praised the governor for signing Act 97, which is effective immediately.

Sen. Mike Gabbard, who introduced a similar bill in 2007, said the law was needed, citing the case of Ricky Bodine, an 18-year-old who fell through a skylight while trying to burglarize a California school in 1982. He was paralyzed and won a settlement of $260,000 plus a $1,200 monthly stipend, according to a paper by a student at the University of California at Berkeley law school.

Toyofuku called immunity an "extreme measure" and said the law isn't needed because it's uncommon for a felon to sue for compensation for injuries caused by the action of a property owner.

However, he supported provisions later put into the bill that protect the right of innocent people to sue for injuries.

"I felt that at one point (if) it was going to pass, that we needed to make sure that there were certain provisions in there," he said.

An added provision says the perpetrator must be convicted of a crime for the property owner to be immune from liability.

That would protect the right to sue for people who had no criminal intention, such as a someone who mistakenly walks into the wrong house and gets shot.

Toyofuku said there are also questions about how the law would affect criminal cases.

In a criminal case, a property owner cannot use unreasonable force, such as shooting a person who is wielding only a magazine, he said.

Please contact me if I can help you. My phone is 586-6830 and e-mail is sengabbard@capitol.hawaii.gov. Mahalo for the privilege of serving you!