The judge sitting in probate was not required to make formal findings or to issue any written decision. Estate of Mansbridge, 29 Haw. 73. With respect to the claim of appellants that their motion to vacate the order appointing the guardian or, in the alternative to remove the guardian, should not have been denied without a hearing, the Supreme Court of Hawaii held that insofar as the motion was one to vacate the appointment, its disposition was "within the sound judicial discretion of the probate judge."

Contestants' "Notice of Appeal" to the circuit court filed on June 2, 1964, was an appeal from the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law, 14 days after the entry of the findings on May 19, 1964. Contestants did not file a Notice of Appeal from the Order admitting the will to probate until the amended application for relief was granted. An appeal must be taken from the final Order of Probate and not the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. Estate of Mansbridge, 29 Haw. 73, 78. See Ching v. Tong, 39 Haw. 20, 22; Ogata v. Ogata, 30 Haw. 620; Makainai v. Lalakea, 24 Haw. 518; Mutch v. Holau, 5 Haw. 314, 315. Compliance with statutory requirements for the taking of an appeal is mandatory. Estate of Amasiu, 36 Haw. 394.

In designating the judicial acts from which appeals to the supreme court may be taken the two statutes are quite different. In section 2509 appeals are allowed from decisions, orders, judgments or decrees, and it has been frequently decided by this court that these terms, although separately stated, relate to the same final judicial act and are therefore synonymous. ( Estate of Mansbridge, 29 Haw. 73.) Section 4330, however, as we have seen, confers the right of appeal from the judgment, sentence or commitment, which are not synonymous terms but are separate and distinct judicial acts, each one of which is necessary to an authorized punishment for contempt. The motion is denied.

Although the various steps necessary to the administration of decedents' estates are civil as distinguished from criminal matters, "they are [not] civil in the sense that the procedure by which ordinary civil suits must be heard and determined is applicable to them." Estate of Mansbridge, 29 Haw. 73, 77 (1926). Thus, the failure to amend Rule 81(a)(1) to include HRS Chapter 560 was an oversight and does not change the intent of the HRCP to exclude probate proceedings from their applicability.