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August 25, 2007

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While the article spends a good amount of time on the procedural jiggering the court did to keep the case alive, I'm still way more disturbed at the violence the court did to the text of the constitution (deciding "counties" really means "county councils") than I am at the liberties it took with the intent of a procedural rule.

As counsel for the homeowners, I naturally agree.

On the question of the term "county," the language of article VIII, section 3 of the Hawaii Constitution very plainly delegates property tax power to the counties, not "county councils" as you note.

HAWSCT has established fairly set rules of construction for how to interpret constitutional language, and the start point is the supposedly "plain meaning" of the words. If the words in the text are plain, that's also supposed the be the end of the analysis, and the courts can't go further to search for meaning outside the document.

The majority opinion held that the term "county" is ambiguous, and determined that when the language was drafted, the framers really should have said "county councils," since they intended to delegate the property tax power only to councils, not to the counties themselves (which would not preclude the people of the county from acting via charter amendment).

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    October 20, 2010


    As a follow up to the live panel discussion of the Supreme Court's "judicial takings" case, Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Envt'l Protection, the ABA will be presenting a teleconference on the case.

    I will again be moderating a panel with experts Professor John Echeverria (Vermont Law School), Jim Burling (Pacific Legal Foundation), Richard Frank (U.C. Davis Law School), and Dan Stengle (one of the attorneys who argued the case).

    More details to be posted as they become available.

    August 6, 2010


    One of the featured CLE sessions at the 2010 American Bar Association annual meeting in San Francisco was the Section of State and Local Government Law's session on the beach renourishment case, Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep't of Envt'l Protection, a case involving "judicial takings" and ownership of beachfront land. The Section of Real Property, Trusts, and Estate Law co-sponsored the session.

    I moderated a panel discussing the case and its implications. Also on the panel were Professor John Echeverria (Vermont Law School), Jim Burling (Pacific Legal Foundation), Richard Frank (U.C. Davis Law School), and Dan Stengle (one of the attorneys who argued the case).

    May 6, 2010


    I presented a session on Are Courts Waking Up To Property Rights? at the Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association's Spring Seminar.

    April 30, 2010


    I moderated a presentation of the recently published book Takings International by Professor Rachelle Alterman, the Chair in Architecture/Town Planning at Technion Israel Institute of Technology.

    In addition to Professor Alterman, the panel included Professor Russell Brown (University of Alberta) and Professor Bryan Schwartz (University of Manitoba) who gave details and criticisms of Canada's approach, Professor David Callies (University of Hawaii) discussing the Asia and Pacific approaches, and Professor Tom Roberts (Wake Forest University) comparing our homegrown system.

    In a separate program on Land Use Hot Topics, I presented a paper Recent Developments in Challenging the Right to Take in Eminent Domain.

    These sessions were part of the ABA State and Local Government Law Section's Spring Meeting in Miami.

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