Rule 1 Classification of Proceedings

District courts in Hawaiʻi sort every case into one of five basic types. These are civil cases (which include regular claims), small claims, special proceedings, criminal cases, and traffic cases.

Civil cases usually involve disputes between people or businesses over money or other issues. Small claims are a simpler, faster version of civil cases, typically for smaller amounts of money. Criminal and traffic cases are self-explanatory, they deal with criminal charges and traffic violations.

Special proceedings are a catch-all category. This includes certain specific legal actions, like those under District Court Rule of Civil Procedure 72 or Hawaiʻi law section 604-10.5, plus anything else that doesn't fit neatly into the other four categories. Basically, if a case doesn't match civil, small claims, criminal, or traffic, it gets handled as a special proceeding.