The Hawai'i Supreme Court heard arguments yesterday on whether the Office of Hawaiian Affairs can seek what state attorneys estimate to be hundreds of millions of dollars from the state for revenues related to lands once owned by the Hawaiian monarchy.

Justices grilled the lawyer for the state, which wants the court to affirm a 2003 state judge's dismissal of OHA's lawsuit seeking the money, and former Associate Justice Robert Klein, who represents OHA and urged the court to reinstate the suit.

The five-member court adjourned, as is usual, without ruling and without saying when the justices will render a decision.

Attorney General Mark Bennett and Klein declined to predict which way the court might rule based on the extensive questioning by the justices.

The hearing is the latest development in Hawai'i's long-running legal dispute over 1.8 million acres once owned by the Hawaiian kingdom. The land was turned over to the federal government when Hawai'i was annexed in 1898, and later handed over to the state to hold in trust for the public and for Native Hawaiians.

The issue: How much money should the state give OHA from revenues from those lands, and whether courts or legislators should resolve that question.

The state recognizes the obligation and pays the OHA about $9.5 million a year. But this case involves revenues related to ceded lands that the state does not believe it must pay. These disputed revenues include money from Duty Free Shoppers at locations away from Honolulu International Airport, which sits on ceded lands.

In 2001, the high court delivered a major setback to OHA by striking down a 1990 state law that established a formula that OHA should get 20 percent of ceded land revenues.

The court ruled that the 1990 law conflicted with a 1997 federal law, known as the Forgiveness Act. That law barred the state from using the airport money to pay OHA, but also "forgave" the state and excused the state from trying to recover $28.2 million it had paid OHA earlier.

OHA later filed a lawsuit saying the state breached its fiduciary duty to OHA and its Native Hawaiian beneficiaries by switching from its earlier position and agreeing with the Forgiveness Act.

In 2003, Circuit Judge Gary Chang dismissed the lawsuit.

Deputy Attorney General Dorothy Sellers told the justices yesterday the issue of payment should be left to lawmakers. She argued that OHA's allegations are barred under laws granting the state sovereign immunity from such lawsuits. She also said the suit should be dismissed because it was filed too late.

Klein, who appeared as a private lawyer before the high court for the first time since he retired in 2000, argued that the state found itself in a conflict between federal authorities and its obligations to OHA.

OHA's suit asks the state to pay damages essentially equal to what it was seeking before the high court's 2001 ruling.

The exact amount was not clear yesterday. Bennett estimated it would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Klein said it would be more than $100 million.

The hearing is the first of three scheduled this year. The others deal with whether a constitutional amendment ratified by voters last year is valid and whether a woman whose two-day-old baby died from a high level of methamphetamine in his blood can be prosecuted for using ice while pregnant.