Minami Tamaki LLP Managing Partner Sean Tamura-Sato and Senior Counsel Donald K. Tamaki are assisting the Japanese Benevolent Society of California (JBSC) regain its license to operate the historic Japanese Cemetery in Colma. 

The nonprofit retained Sean to deliver essential litigation support and Don is providing pro bono legal counsel alongside other specialized corporate and regulatory firms. Their intervention addresses a crisis where JBSC lost its operational rights due to administrative compliance lapses caused by the advanced age, illnesses, and successive deaths of its long-term leadership. 

Guided by this legal team, JBSC  is in the process of reconstituting its board, and completing the laborious and complicated process of completing the paperwork necessary to restore its corporate status.

With Sean's assistance, the California Franchise Tax Board reinstated JBSC's corporate status on August 10, 2026. This active corporate status with the state is the first step in the process of license restoration.

JBSC and the Japanese American Religious Federation hosted a town hall meeting on June 30 to update the community and emphasize ongoing efforts to ensure the historic site stays within the community.

The Japanese Benevolent Society of California (Jikei-kai), founded in 1901, opened the two-acre Japanese Cemetery in Colma in 1903, after San Francisco passed a law forbidding new burials within city limits. In 1906, the Japanese government granted funding to the non-denominational cemetery where Japanese citizens could have plots to be buried. Historically, the remains of three sailors from the Kanrin Maru, the ship that brought the first Japanese Embassy to the U.S. are there, along with other notable Japanese and Japanese Americans in Northern California.

The JBSC has managed and operated the cemetery all this time. However, a series of cascading events have led to JBSC's current situation. The longtime leader of JBSC suffered a serious stroke in 2019 and passed away in 2020, and his successor passed away in 2023. Thereafter, it was exceptionally difficult for JBSC to bring on new leadership and continue operations during the COVID-19 pandemic .

To further complicate matters, many of the directors during relevant time periods were very advanced in age, suffered from serious disabilities, and a number have died. Communication became difficult as most of the elderly board members were mainly Japanese-speaking, becoming frail and did not understand how to keep up technologically with online filing and zoom conference calls. The nonprofit missed filing deadlines over the succeeding years.

As a result, the situation became overwhelming and JBSC struggled to maintain continuity in administrative oversight and compliance matters. While these issues do not diminish JBSC's responsibility to address the organization's obligations, they provide important context for how the organization came to be in its present position.