Vested rights

The Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals, in a unanimous panel opinion authored by Judge Foley, held that a “zoning verification” by the Director of the City and County’s Department of Planning and Permitting is not a “decision of the Director” which a property owner must administratively appeal to the Honolulu Zoning Board of Appeals. Hoku …

You know how we’re always saying that certain parties have an enviable record of success in the Hawaii Supreme Court? Well, now the statistics are official.

The latest edition of the University of Hawaii Law Review published an article by lawprof David Callies summarzing the decisions of the court during the tenure of now-retired Chief…

Here’s what we’re reading today:

  • We know you probably read Professor Gideon Kanner’s blog daily, but in case you missed his thoughts about the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinion in Arkansas Game and Fish Comm’n v. United States, No. 11-597 (Dec. 4, 2012), please read them here. Today’s must-read.
  • Today is Pearl Harbor day,

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We’ve talked California raisins before, but the latest is about oysters. Specifically, an oyster farm in a Marin County National Seashore, the Drakes Bay Oyster Company.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar visited the place a couple of weeks ago to see if he would be willing to extend the farm’s existing license, which has been…

Gideon Kanner recently asked “Whatever Happened to Condemnation of Underwater Mortgages?”

Watch this November 23, 2012 interview with the chairman of Mortgage Resolution Partners for the views from the outfit that proposed the idea of using eminent domain to take underwater mortgages. He says the idea is “not dead at all … but…

Believing that discretion was the better part of valor, we didn’t think there would be a challenge to the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals’ opinion in Leone v. County of Maui, No 29692 (June 22, 2012). But we were wrong, and the County of Maui is going all in. 

Update Dec. 12, 2012: cert…

You can take the Justice out of the Court, but you apparently can’t take the Court out of the Justice. Retired Justice John Paul Stevens has added the “ninth vote” (his words, not ours) in Stop the Beach Renourishment, Inc. v. Florida Dep’t of Environmental Protection, No. 08-11 (June 17, 2010), the case is…

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…

We’ve been meaning to post the latest developments in a case we’ve been following, two lawsuits that originated in state court in the Third Circuit (Big Island), one an original jurisdiction civil rights lawsuit, the other an administrative appeal (that’s a writ of administrative mandate for you Californians) against the State of Hawaii Land…

Today, the Texas Supreme Court issued opinions in Severance v. Patterson, No. 09-0387, the case before the court on certified questions from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit asked whether Texas recognizes a “rolling” beachfront access easement (a public easement on littoral property that moves with naturally caused…