Attorneys who filed a lawsuit that resulted in payment of some $3 million in back child support payments to Hawai'i families can't collect legal fees or expenses in the case, the Hawai'i Supreme Court ruled this week.

The ruling came in a state appeal of a lower court ruling that awarded nearly $500,000 in legal fees to a team of lawyers who sued the state Child Support Enforcement Agency in 1998 on behalf of a client named Ann Kemp.

The Supreme Court reversed the award of attorney's fees, ruling that because Kemp was not in the group of people who received the $3 million in support payments, her lawyers were not entitled to collect fees in the case.

Kemp's child support payments were delayed for a matter of months because of "glitches" in the CSEA's computer system, but thousands of other payments were delayed for years because the state had lost track of the parents and children who were supposed to receive that money.

As a result of the suit, the CSEA stepped up its efforts to locate and notify custodial parents who had money coming to them.

Frank O'Brien, lead attorney on Kemp's legal team, yesterday called the Supreme Court decision "a shame" because the case caused "the state to pay out $3 million to parents and children who were owed the money but would never have seen it otherwise."

In a press release yesterday, the state Attorney General's office said the Supreme Court ruling "vindicated" the child support agency .

"That's a joke," O'Brien said.

"They had $3 million that they hadn't paid out and they weren't going to pay out until we got them to do it," O'Brien said. "I don't see that as a vindication. I see that as something that most people would be ashamed of."

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.