Headline On Kona Condemnation Cases - Not In The Ballpark

I usually try to not take too seriously the headlines attached to a newspaper story or op-ed. After all, an editor -- and not the reporter or op-ed author -- may have written the headline, and it may be designed to grab a reader's attention or focus on a part of the story the editor thinks important. 

But a headline should at least be in the ballpark, factually. 

However, after reading the headline in a Honolulu Star-Bulletin story on the recent Hawaii Supreme Court decision in the Kona bypass condemnations, "Suit to block highway is dismissed" I was left wondering whether there was another case going on over the Hokulia road that I didn't know about.  Turns out no, there's just the two, the headline just got it very, very wrong.   

First, the facts. On December 24, 2008, in County of Hawaii v. C & J Coupe Family Limited Partnership, No. 28882, the Hawaii Supreme Court held the government must pay damages (including attorneys fees and courts costs) when an attempt to take property by eminent domain fails. The Court also held that trial courts cannot simply take the government's word that a taking is "for public use," and have an obligation to take seriously allegations that the government's claimed reason for a taking is not a pretext to private benefit. The Court remanded (send back to the circuit court) two condemnation actions filed by the County against Kona property owners in 2000 and 2005 to take their land for a road to connect the hyperluxury "Hokulia" development with the regional highway.

The 2000 case had been dismissed by the circuit court, which ruled in favor of the landowners that the County illegally gave Hokulia the condemnation power in a Development Agreement. The circuit court, however, did not award the landowners damages after the dismissal. The Supreme Court ordered the circuit court to make the landowners whole, which includes payment of their attorneys fees and costs.

In the 2005 condemnation case, the Supreme Court held the circuit court should have taken seriously the landowners' claims that the County's claimed public use -- relief of traffic -- was instead a pretext to mask the private benefit to Hokulia. The story gets that part right:

However, the high court ordered more hearings by a lower court in Kona on whether Hawaii County wants a portion of the Coupe land merely as a "pretext" to benefit a private residential development, as the family contends.

Thus, there is no "suit to block highway" -- in a condemnation action, the government is the plaintiff and the landowner is the defendant -- and nothing was "dismissed." The subheadline "The state high court orders hearings into ethics allegations over a Big Isle road" is also perplexing. Yes, the Supreme Court ordered further hearings, but not over "ethics allegations." Pretext does not require a showing that the County or Hokulia violated ethics rules or acted in bad faith, merely that there was private benefit to Hokulia.

The lede also is also off the mark:

Proponents of the Hokulia Bypass highway in South Kona passed one legal road roadblock but could have a few more ahead.

The state Supreme Court turned down last week a request by the Coupe family to block construction where the highway would cross the family's property south of the 1,550-acre Hokulia residential development.

I'm not sure what "legal road roadblock" the "proponents of the Hokulia Bypass highway in South Kona passed." The Supreme Court ordered the County to pay damages for the failed 2000 condemnation, struck down the circuit court's determination that the 2005 condemnation was valid, and noted in its opinion several times that neither the County nor Hokulia ever challenged the circuit court's finding that the 2000 condemnation was flatly illegal. The Supreme Court certainly did not "turn down" a request by the landowners to block construction -- indeed, it said the landowners' objections should have been taken seriously.

If that's a "turn down," then I'd like to be turned down more often.

Update - The Star-Bulletin has issued corrections and clarifications on the story, posted here.