After a state jury yesterday rejected their wrongful death lawsuit against the city, the parents of a Nu'uanu woman killed when a boulder smashed through their hillside home said they remain fearful it could happen to someone else.

"To just move on as business as usual, I think, is wrong," Patrick Onishi said. "This was not about compensation for Dara's death but all about fixing a problem."

Dara Onishi, 25, died Aug. 9, 2002, after a 5-ton boulder crashed into her bedroom as she slept in the family's home on Henry Street.

Her parents, Patrick and Gail Onishi, sued the city, claiming that a rainwater drainage system installed by the city on Pacific Heights Road sent water onto the hillside above the Onishis' home and caused the boulder to come loose.

But a Circuit Court jury yesterday absolved the city of negligence. The panel of six men and six women returned a unanimous verdict.

Marie Gavigan, city deputy corporation counsel, said Dara Onishi's death was an unfortunate and tragic incident, but that the verdict confirmed the city didn't do anything to cause the boulder to fall.

SAFETY CONCERNS

City attorneys earlier said the drainage system empties onto a different section of hillside than the boulder came from.

The Onishis said their $1.8 million wrongful death suit was not about money but the safety of all hillside residents.

"For a family to have gone through the loss that we have and then to know that there are others who are in the same conditions we are and that the city is unwilling to acknowledge this I think is an unconscionable position to be taking," Patrick Onishi said.

The Onishis are also party to a lawsuit against the city filed in April 2004 seeking injunctive relief to the Pacific Heights Road drainage system. A trial date has not been scheduled.

"It would have been completely satisfactory if the city would have provided a safe condition for us to be able to pursue a choice as to whether we wanted to stay in the house or in good conscience to be able to convey the property to some other buyer," Patrick Onishi said.

He said the family also wanted the city to "take responsibility for monitoring the conditions that result when you throw water over the hillside and where erosion becomes a byproduct of that kind of situation."

Onishi said his family had lived in the house 33 years without knowing about the water-disposal conditions above them on Pacific Heights Road.

"What we learned in the process of our legal pursuit," Gail Onishi said in a written statement, "is that the city is dumping water in the backyards of other people. We hope the city will make known to unsuspecting victims that these conditions exist and that the city takes steps to prevent another death.

"We've lived through this tragedy and will be paying hundreds of thousands (of dollars) in our unsuccessful attempt to have the city change its practice of unmonitored surface drainage systems above areas where people live. We hope that some goodwill will come of it for others."

PUBLIC AWARENESS

Steven Kim, the Onishis' attorney, said his clients succeeded in drawing attention to the issue of hillside safety.

"We as a community are moving forward in our awareness of what this type of problem really is and what it means to us," Kim said. "Along the way there's going to be battles lost and battles won but overall, the public awareness of the boulder problem in Hawai'i is growing.

"The primary objective is to improve the safety situation."

Reach Rod Ohira at rohira@honoluluadvertiser.com.