Opinion ID: 2612541
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Measure of Appurtenant Rights

Text: With respect to plaintiffs' lands where the appurtenant water rights were not extinguished, we find the trial court erred in concluding that plaintiffs failed to demonstrate adequately the quantity of water to which they were entitled. For while the proper measure of those rights is indeed the quantum of water utilized at the time of the Mahele, requiring too great a degree of precision in proof would make it all but impossible to ever establish such rights. We therefore hold that when, as in this case, the same parcel of land is being utilized to cultivate traditional products by means approximating those utilized at the time of the Mahele, there is sufficient evidence to give rise to a presumption that the amount of water diverted for such cultivation sufficiently approximates the quantity of the appurtenant water rights to which that land is entitled. Plaintiffs' remaining lands with appurtenant rights are therefore entitled to that amount of water utilized to cultivate taro prior to the BWS diversions that led to the damaging of their crops.