2012

Here’s the cert petition in a case we’ve been following that presents a question that has divided the lower courts – do the nexus and rough proportionality tests for whether a land use exaction works a taking apply to exactions of cash, or are they limited to land exactions? In St. Johns River Water Management …

Last week, we were on the Rick Hamada program on KHVH-AM, summing up the recent Hawaii Supreme Court oral arguments in Kaleikini v. Yoshioka, No. SCAP-11-0000611, the appeal asking whether archaeological review must be completed for the entire 20-mile length of the Honolulu rail project, or whether it can be done on a “phased”…

SCOTUSblog has picked the cert petition in Redevelopment Authority of the County of Montgomery, Pennsylvania v. R & J Holding Co.as its “Petition of the Day” —

Issue(s): (1) Whether issue preclusion bars a takings claim based on the Fifth Amendment only where the state court expressly decides Fifth Amendment issues or…

Here is the final brief (Petitioner’s response to the SG’s inviation amicus) in Corboy v. Louie, No. 11-336 (cert. petition filed Sep. 15, 2011), the case asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Hawaii Supreme Court’s dismissal of a challenge to the property tax exemptions conferred on lessees of Hawaiian Homesteads. The…

This just in: the Ninth Circuit has issued an opinion in Kaahumanu v. State of Hawaii Dep’t of Land and Natural Resources, No. 10-15645 (June 6, 2012), the case challenging the State’s regulation of commercial weddings on state beaches under the First Amendment. The court mostly upheld the regulations, but struck down the…

Watch this case: it is likely to be a landmark in Hawaii water law.

Hawaii water law cases tend to be vast adventures in history, culture, irreconcilable arguments, and oddball doctrines (e.g., appurtenant water rights are keyed to the amount of taro under cultivation at the time of the 1848 Mahele), and the…