LIHU‘E — A local case of property rights, state-government authority and state and federal constitutional questions has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. It involves leases of state land at Koke‘e State Park, where generations of kama‘aina families have
LIHU‘E — A local case of property rights, state-government authority and state and federal constitutional questions has been appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
It involves leases of state land at Koke‘e State Park, where generations of kama‘aina families have made improvements after simple cabins were erected there as far back as territorial days, said Lihu‘e attorney Dan Hempey, who had to get licensed to practice before the nation’s highest court in order to file the petition on Tuesday.
Simply put, petitioners alphabetically from Carswell to Wong including members of the Wilcox and other long-time island families say it is against the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution to take their property without just compensation, while the state’s contention all along has been that the lessees signed leases in 1985 agreeing to return improvements to the state at the end of the 20-year leases.
State courts from Judge Kathleen Watanabe’s 5th Circuit to the Intermediate Court of Appeals to the Hawai‘i Supreme Court have ruled in favor of the state Department of Land and Natural Resources in the case, leaving the nation’s highest court as the only appellate option.
The petition for writ of certiorari is a 200-plus-page document bound in booklet form.
Hempey said in 1985 lessees were given the option by DLNR to either sign 20-year leases with the understanding that after 20 years they surrender their improvements without any compensation, or not sign the leases and simply turn over their improvements immediately, also without compensation.
Given those two choices, the lessees signed the leases, he said.
Hempey said the lessees argue that the contracts they felt compelled to sign took away constitutional rights, specifically the 5th Amendment right which provides, in part, that no person shall “be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
The DLNR, through spokesperson Deborah Ward, said department leaders had not seen the U.S. Supreme Court filing and therefore would make no comment at this time.
Hempey said 65 lessees, not all named in the U.S. Supreme Court filing, have Koke‘e property currently assessed at $8 million for county property-tax purposes and they pay those taxes.
The lessees also argue that the contracts they signed in 1985 do not contain a waiver of the constitutional right to just compensation upon a taking of private property, said Hempey.
He said Thursday that he had to make 40 copies of his petition for U.S. Supreme Court law clerks and justices to review.
Receiving around 7,000 cases a year, the high court hears only a small percentage of them, and there is no set timetable for the court to decide whether to hear a case, he said.
• Paul C. Curtis, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com.
