A federal judge has ruled in favor of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs' policy of assisting all Native Hawaiians, not just those with 50 percent or more Hawaiian blood.

U.S. District Judge Susan Oki Mollway on Friday ruled in favor of OHA trustees and dismissed a lawsuit that claimed OHA could only spend money on Hawaiians of "not less than one-half part" of Hawaiian blood.

The lawsuit was filed by five men, each with 50 percent or more Hawaiian blood, who said OHA has too many beneficiaries and that money from what's known as the Public Land Trust — established under the Hawai'i Admissions Act of 1959, which admitted Hawai'i as a state — can only be used to benefit those who have at least 50 percent Hawaiian blood.

Mollway said in her ruling that "the Admissions Act is not so restrictive."

Earlier, in documents that indicated how she would eventually rule, Mollway wrote: "OHA trustees have broad discretion" in deciding how to better the condition of native Hawaiians.

OHA maintains that its mandate is to assist all Hawaiians, regardless of blood quantum.

Walter Schoettle, attorney for the plaintiffs, yesterday said of the ruling: "It's wrong, and we're going to appeal to the 9th Circuit."

An attempt to reach Robert Klein, an attorney hired by OHA, was unsuccessful yesterday.

In a statement released yesterday, Haunani Apoliona, chairperson of the OHA Board of Trustees, said: "We are pleased with the court's decision. Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs are elected to do productive work on behalf of our beneficiaries. We remain committed to that objective."

In her 35-page decision issued Friday, Mollway offered several examples of how OHA might offer programs that benefit a wider range of Hawaiians than those who have a blood quantum of 50 percent, and asked if the plaintiffs could reasonably challenge them.

For example, she asked, what if OHA offered to pay the medical expenses for the birth of any Hawaiian child? If the mother were 25 percent Hawaiian and the father 75 percent, the child would be 50 percent. The medical treatments, she said, would benefit the child and the mother.

"Would plaintiffs object to the benefits flowing to the Hawaiian mother?" the judge wrote.

The case was originally filed in 2005 by Virgil Day, Mel Ho'omanawanui, Josiah Ho'ohuli, Patrick Kahawaiola'a and Samuel Kealoha.

According to Mollway's ruling, the men cited four specific instances in which OHA allegedly violated federal law by using "public trust funds for purposes not limited to the betterment of the conditions of Native Hawaiians."

These instances are OHA's use of public trust funds to support the so-called Akaka bill, the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., the Na Pua No'eau Education Program and Alu Like, a nonprofit organization that provides a variety of social programs.

But according to Mollway's ruling, OHA's funding of these efforts is "consistent with the Admission Act."

She wrote, "Nothing in ... the Admission Act prohibits the use of trust funds that, while bettering the condition of native Hawaiians, also benefits the conditions of others. Plaintiffs read (the act) in a cramped, exclusionary manner that, if accepted, could lead to ridiculous results."

Mollway had first rejected the case in 2006, but a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in August 2007 ordered her to hear the case.