By Murry Engle
Two lawyers, who represented clients in a traffic case in which a girl was killed and her brother seriously injured, have donated a total of $60,600 of their fees to establish, in Hawaii Kai, a new outpatient clinic of the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific.
They are Raymond J. Tam, senior partner in the law firm of Shim Tam Kirimitsu Kitamura & Chang, and Mark Davis, a partner in the law firm of Davis Levin Livingston.
The proposed Dawn Marie Julian Clinic is subject to a 30-day administrative review by the state Health Planning and Development Agency. If the proposal is approved, work could begin in late May to renovate the Hawaii Kai Medical and Office building, 333 Keahole St., which will be used for the clinic. It could begin operating in July.
The new clinic would be an extension of the outpatient services now offered by the rehabilitation hospital in Nuuanu and its clinics in Aiea and Mililani.
In a traffic accident in Aug. 17, 1986, Ernest Uyeno, the driver of a Wagoneer
jeep, hit Dawn Marie, 16; her brother, Richard, 14, and a friend, Elizabeth
Thompson, 15, as they walked on the shoulder of the town-bound lanes of
Kalanianaole Highway near Niu Valley.
Dawn Marie and Thompson were killed; Richard was paralyzed from the waist down.
The Julian children’s parents are Richard and Cecelia Julian, who live on Kalanianaole Highway.
Uyeno, who left the scene, was convicted of first-degree negligent homicide in the deaths of the two girls, as well as failing to stop and render aid. He was sentenced to a 10-year prison term.
Tam represented young Richard Julian, who underwent therapy at the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific; Davis represented the parents. Other defendants besides Uyeno included a Pizza Hut restaurant where a witness said Uyeno had been drinking beer before the accident, and Mr. and Mrs. Wayne Kano and Kano Trucking Service Inc., which owned the jeep Uyeno was driving.
Tam and Davis reached an out-of-court settlement in December with the five defendants for $3.255 million. They would not discuss their fees at the time, but they have given $60,600 of their fees to build the clinic.
Sharon Ishii, executive vice president of the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific Foundation, said that a son of Tam’s was a patient at the Rehabilitation Hospital of the Pacific after suffering a series of strokes in 1984. Now in his 20s, the son is a student at the University of Hawaii, Ishii said.
“We think it’s very nice,” Ishii said. “You hear so much about attorneys who make a lot of money. It’s nice that they are putting some back into the facility that helped Richard get better and nice that they are naming the clinic after Dawn.”
Jim Kahler, vice president of care service for the hospital, said the Hawaii Kai site was chosen because a lot of people in the area asked for the clinic.
“We take care of a lot of patients from all over Hawaii,” Kahler said. “Traffic keeps getting worse. Outpatients are coming into our Injured Workers Center and our Comprehensive Outpatient Rehabilitation program and some of them come in a long way.”
“We’d been looking or a couple of years, but, it’s difficult to find space on the ground floor.”
“Finally, we found the Hawaii Kai Medical and Office building at 333 Keahole St., which has 100,000 square feet,” Kahler said.