Opinion ID: 1182352
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Hawaiian Judicial Precedent

Text: The foregoing general historical observations are supported by a long line of Hawaiian judicial precedent. I undertake to analyze this precedent here in order to point out more fully the errors of McBryde I. Peck v. Bailey, 8 Haw. 658 (1867), was a controversy between landowners within an ahupuaa involving the right of one such landowner to make certain diversions of water from a river originating within the ahupua to dry ( kula ) land. Although the case specifically adjudicated only appurtenant water rights, the court observed, in dictum, that the conveyance by the king of land bordering on [a] river will include the rights of water in said river, which had not been before granted [ i.e., surplus water]. Id. at 671 (emphasis added). Davis v. Afong, 5 Haw. 216 (1884), involved a dispute over the right of a konohiki to appropriate running underground spring water which originated on his land. The court held that konohiki land awarded subsequent to the Mahele carried with it the right to the surplus spring water originating thereupon. However, the court's reasoning had more far-ranging implications. If private land grants pursuant to the Mahele included the right to running spring water (an important usufruct of the land), then it would seem that a fortiori the grants included the right to running surface water. [17] In Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. v. Wailuku Sugar Co., 15 Haw. 675 (1904), the court for the first time was faced squarely with the question of the ownership of surplus surface running water. The case involved a single ahupuaa that had been split in ownership between the complainant, as owner of the land in the ahupuaa in which a river originated, and the respondent, as owner of a large tract of kula land within the ahupuaa. At the heart of the suit were diversions by the respondent of all the surplus water from the river for the purpose of irrigating its kula land. The court held specifically that the grant to the respondent of the dry part of the ahupuaa did not carry with it the right to all the surplus water. Id. at 683. Instead, the court held: Surplus water. This, in our opinion, is the property of the konohiki [of the entire ahupuaa ], to do with as he pleases, and is not appurtenant to any particular portion of the ahupuaa. By ancient Hawaiian custom this was so ... [N]o limitation, so far as we can learn, ever existed or was supposed to exist to his power to use the surplus water as he saw fit. Id. at 680. The indication in McBryde I that the foregoing passage was dictum, 54 Haw. at 182, 504 P.2d at 1336, was erroneous, since the determination of who owned the surplus water was, as it is in this case, necessary to the proper resolution of the controversy between the parties to the suit. Cf. State v. Tominaga, 45 Haw. 604, 612-613, 372 P.2d 356, 361 (1962). The next case to consider title to the surplus water of a stream was Carter v. Territory, 24 Haw. 47 (1917). In Carter, a stream originated on one ahupuaa (owned by the Territory) and flowed through that land to a second ahupuaa (owned by the plaintiff). The sole issue in the action was whether the Territory, as konohiki of the upstream ahupuaa, was entitled to all of the storm and freshet surplus water in the stream. The court acknowledged that [w]here a stream flows through a single ahupuaa ... the [normal] surplus waters of the stream belong to the ahupuaa.  Id. at 70. However, it went on to hold that the ownership of storm and freshet water which passes through two ahupuaas must be divided between them on the basis of the common law doctrine of riparianism. [18] See Territory v. Gay, 31 Haw. 376, 404 (1930) (Parsons, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Whatever the wisdom of the Carter court in adopting the riparian doctrine with respect to this class of surplus water, a necessary element of its holding in this regard was that such water was subject to private ownership and was not the property of the government. See Foster v. Waiahole Water Co., 25 Haw. 726, 734 (1921) (surplus water is the class of water which originally the chief or konohiki could dispose of at will irrespective of the rights of the other owners and tenants). The overruling of this aspect of Carter in McBryde I was ill-advised, especially in light of the reliance on that case earlier in the court's opinion for the proposition that the water law of this State is governed by riparian doctrine. See 54 Haw. at 182, 504 P.2d at 1336. Finally, Territory v. Gay, supra , held unequivocally that the normal surplus water of a stream was the private property of the konohiki of the ahupuaa or ili kupono on which it originates. This was a suit by the Territory to enjoin diversions by Gay and Robinson (both parties here) of surplus water from the Koula stream. The Territory argued that as owner of the ahupuaa of Hanapepe it was entitled to all the surplus water originating in the valley, even though the source of that water was in the ilis kupono of Koula and Manuahi, owned by Gay and Robinson. The court, however, reasoned that an ili kupono was co-equal in dignity with an ahupuaa, and that at least as to normal surplus water which originated on an ili kupono the konohiki thereof had title paramount to that of the konohiki of a downstream ahupuaa. [19] McBryde I gave a grudging acceptance to Gay by holding that as between the State and Gay and Robinson the case was res judicata. 54 Haw. at 177-179, 504 P.2d at 1334-1335. However, the court proceeded to sap that precedent of its force by holding that under established Hawaiian water law there is no such thing as normal daily surplus water. Id. at 199, 504 P.2d at 1345. In doing so, the court ignored the well-defined and often reiterated meaning acquired by the term surplus water over the course of more than a century of Hawaiian law, viz., all water in a stream not required to satisfy appurtenant or prescriptive rights. See Hutchins 69 & n. 15 and cases cited therein; note 6 supra. It follows that the Gay case awarded to Gay and Robinson real and substantial water rights in accordance with this meaning. See McBryde Sugar Co. v. Robinson, supra at 206, 504 P.2d at 1348 (Marumoto, J., concurring and dissenting). The foregoing judicial pronouncements, even standing alone, are highly persuasive authority for the proposition that title to the surplus waters of maheled land passed into the private hands of the konohikis. As stated in Yoshizaki v. Hilo Hospital, 50 Haw. 150, 153, 433 P.2d 220, 222-223 (1967), this court is not as free in deciding cases in the area of real property as in the area of torts, even if it is assumed, for the sake of argument, that the abovementioned line of precedent projects a consistently erroneous line of reasoning. In re Austin, 33 Haw. 832, 839 (1936) (the doctrine of stare decisis has a special force in the area of land law; even though prior decisions may be unsound, if they are long established and conformed to ... such decisions should not be overturned). [20] The very substantial agricultural industry of this state exists in its present configuration only by virtue of great expenditures made for the development of irrigation systems. See McBryde Sugar Co. v. Robinson, supra 54 Haw. at 201, 208, 504 P.2d at 1346, 1349 (Marumoto, J., concurring and dissenting). These systems are designed to deliver vast amounts of water which, under prior decisions of this court, was thought to be the subject of private ownership and development. See, e.g., Wadsworth 150-58. See generally 3 Kuykendall 62-70; R. Kuykendall & A. Day, Hawaii: A History 128, 153-54 (rev. ed. 1948). I discuss the constitutional ramifications of the court's sudden about-face from these decisions in pt. IV of this opinion. But I need not rest the judgment that the court erred in McBryde I as a matter of state law solely on a re-evaluation of prior case law and ancient Hawaiian usage. There is other historical evidence which lends final force to that judgment.