terms, the statute invalidates “[a]ny contract entered into by any person with any unlicensed mortgage broker.” (Emphases added.) “Departure from the literal eon-struetion of a statute is justified only if such a construction yields an absurd and unjust result obviously inconsistent with the purposes and policies of the statute.” Shin v. McLaughlin, 89 Hawai'i 1, 4, 967 P.2d 1059, 1062 (1998) (quoting Alvarez v. Liberty House, Inc., 85 Hawai'i 275, 278, 942 P.2d 539, 542 (1997)). We agree that a hyperliteral construction of HRS § 454-8 would yield an absurd result, inasmuch as a contract wholly unrelated to mortgage brokerage activity, notwithstanding that a party to the contract is an unlicensed mortgage broker, is obviously beyond the intended scope of the statute 285 (D.Haw.1988) (<HOLDING>), and United National Bank of Miami v. Airport
holding broker not a party to a purchase contract and therefore not liable for attorneys fees even though provision providing for payment of the brokers commission was contained in the contract holding brokers were not entitled to commission where agreement provided commission was payable at closing of real estate transaction because brokers did not produce clients that closed holding that the real estate brokers law which provided for the investigation of the acts of real estate brokers and the suspension or revocation of their licenses for specified acts is penal and must be strictly construed holding that when neither real estate brokers licensing statute nor its legislative history indicated that legislature intended unenforeeability of unlicensed brokers commission agreement broker was entitled to retain commission paid holding that in action to enforce note and mortgage by mortgagee which performed brokerage services as part of agreement with mortgagor mortgagees failure to obtain brokers license in violation of statute invalidating unlicensed peisons contracts for commission did not render entire real estate transaction void