Bank of Honolulu v. Davids (Haw. App. 1985)

Decided: 1985-09-20. Opinion

Source note (2026-10-18):

• Links on this page to https://static.case.law/haw-app/6/cases/0025-01.json are an (unofficial Caselaw Access Project copy, retrieved before 2026-10-18; host disallows automated access); no official or otherwise permitted full-text copy was located on 2026-10-18.

Facts

An asserted aircraft purchaser and a judgment creditor disputed whether the aircraft remained available for execution against the debtor after an unrecorded conveyance. Opinion

Holding and disposition

A purported aircraft buyer’s unrecorded conveyance did not defeat the attaching creditor without actual notice under the federal aircraft-recording statute. Aircraft registration alone was not conclusive evidence of ownership. The court upheld the creditor’s attachment position and rejected the purchaser’s newly discovered evidence challenge because reasonable diligence/agency and actual-notice evidence did not justify relief. Hess supplied an analogy, not authority to replace federal aircraft-recording law with vehicle titling. The holding is expressly bounded by the creditor’s lack of actual notice; it is not a rule that recording cures every ownership defect. Opinion

Reasoning and practical scope

Full opinion verified, including agency/actual-notice and postjudgment-evidence issues. Current state airport-registration provisions are not federal ownership recording. Federal statute was later recodified; this historical holding is not represented as a complete 2026 registry-practice or treaty opinion. Targeted primary-name/statutory-annotation searches did not yield a separately verified overruling decision; that negative search is not a still-good-law certificate. Opinion; HRS 0261–0015.0005; HRS 0261–0015.0006

Verification and treatment

The full opinion body was checked. The source is a full reported-opinion reproduction in the Harvard Caselaw Access Project, not a headnote or official court-hosted original. Targeted primary treatment/current-statute checks are described, without representing an exhaustive later-history or still-good-law certification. Original body and SHA-256 are retained in the Hawaii evidence register.

Applies in

hawaii · personal-property-execution-sales-by-state

Legal information, not legal advice. Last verified: 2026-10-18. Consult qualified local counsel about an actual dispute.