Opinion ID: 1186420
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: the state is precluded from denying appellees' title in the subject land

Text: The Findings of the trial court numbered 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 were supported by the evidence adduced by defendants at trial. No contrary evidence was offered by the State, nor did the State's attorney cross examine appellees' witness in respect to the testimony relating to these findings. The appellees' evidence was thus uncontroverted. Equitable estoppel extends to the State of Hawaii. Yamada v. Natural Disaster Claims Commission, 54 Haw. 621, 513 P.2d 1001 (1973). I believe that the State should be estopped from claiming title in this lava extension not only on the basis of the State's specific actions vis a vis this land and these appellees, but also should be estopped from asserting a claim to this and to other lava extensions abutting private lands heretofore created, on the basis of the actions of the agents of the State and its predecessor governments in respect to the ownership of all other new land abutting former seaward boundaries created by lava flows. This decision of the court counts not only for the future, as the majority states, but operates virtually as an ex post facto law depriving other land owners of lava-created holdings which the governments of Hawaii, including all branches and departments of these governments dealing with land other than this court, have consistently and without deviation treated as the property of the abutting owners. The Governor of the Territory of Hawaii in 1931, Executive Order 473, Setting Aside Land for Public Purposes, set aside public lands created in 1926 by a lava extension to lands owned by the government for a public park to be controlled by the County of Hawaii, but excluded from the Order the accretion to Grant 1581 to Kama ... and accretion to L.C. Award 8045 Apana 1 to Anadarea... . The lands excluded adjoined and were surrounded by the government land, but they represented a seaward lava extension to privately owned land. Survey and tax maps clearly delineate the extensions to government land as belonging to the government. Even in the only piece of evidence adduced by the State to suggest that there was a question as to ownership of lava flow land into the ocean, a letter dated March 9, 1931 from Charles L. Murray, Assistant Government Surveyor, to Robert D. King, Territorial Surveyor, Mr. Murray acknowledged that the government might have some interest in the 1926 lava accretion credited to private Grant 1581 to Kama only because before the flow, the beach was used as the main government road in that vicinity. At no time between the Great Mahele in 1846 and 1968, did any sovereign government make any claim to any seaward addition to a privately-owned preexisting land mass created by a volcanic eruption. Maps presented in evidence which were prepared by State agents prior to 1968 designate the seaward additions as lava accretions and all distinguish between the accretions which belong to the government, (those which extended the government's land) and those lava accretions which belonged to private owners (those which extended privately owned land). Not until the Attorney General consulted with the State Surveyor preparatory to bringing this action did the State Surveyor replace the words lava accretion by the words lava flow on maps pertaining to the 1955 flow. At the instruction of the Attorney General during the course of these proceedings, the State Surveyor made a search for data on lands created by lava flows but was unable to find any documentation tending to support the State's post-1965 claim to all lands created by lava flows. It is clear that until the mid-1960's, the official acts of the Governor, the State Surveyor, the Board of Land and Natural Resources and the Tax Department (or their predecessor agencies which performed the same functions) as well as the Boundary Commissioner, all uniformly treated lava extensions as if they belonged to the abutting landowner. Based on this consistent course of conduct of all government officials and agencies, the State should be precluded from denying the title to lava extensions of all private landowners whose seashore boundaries were overrun by lava flowing into the sea from the eruptions of 1887, 1919, 1926, 1950, 1955, 1960, 1971-73. I find the newspaper account of the position of the State prior to 1965 in respect to ownership of ocean-front land created by lava flows to be both accurate and telling: Previously, the State had operated on the assumption that the land belonged to the person who held title to the shoreline that existed before the lava flow. Hawaii Tribune-Herald, May 12, 1965. Whatever the majority perceives the public policy ought to be in respect to the ownership of lava created in the future, I believe that equity requires the State to acknowledge that the official actions of all its agents compel the State's recognition that title to lava extensions created prior to this decision, or at least prior to 1965, rests with the abutting landowner. Although the majority states that the record does not support a finding that the Zimrings informed the State of their belief of ownership in 1961, the Zimrings presented a Certification of Title which described one course of the boundary as along the high water mark. In light of the subject matter of the negotiations between the Zimrings and the State, i.e., the realignment of a roadway necessitated by the lava flow's destruction of the prior roadway along the seashore, and in light of the special legal knowledge of that arm of the State which inspected the Certificate of Title, the Attorney General, I agree with the trial court that the knowledge of the Zimrings' claim is imputed to the State. Further negotiations in 1964 resulted in the granting of an easement in the disputed land to the State by the Zimrings. The State, through the Attorney General, the State Surveyor and the Department of Transportation, must then have acknowledged the Zimrings' ownership of that disputed land in order to accept a deed from them as grantors. And it should be noted that attached to these 1961 and 1964 deeds were maps (prepared by the State Surveyor), which clearly show that the lava extensions (designated as lava accretions) abutting the Zimrings' grants were accepted by both the State and the Zimrings as belonging to the Zimrings, whereas the lava extensions abutting adjacent state property were designated as belonging to the State. In its Opening Brief (p. 36), the Attorney General acknowledges that attached to the deeds of 1961 wherein the Zimrings granted the State a mauka-makai roadway, and attached to the deeds of 1964 wherein the State grants to Zimrings title to the old road right of way, are maps which show that the makai boundary of the new government road goes slightly makai of the old high water mark of the grants in question. This overlapping, however, is purely coincidental... . Coincidental it may be, but it serves as clear proof that in negotiating with the Zimrings for that portion of the new roadway which was in the now disputed lava extension, the State had certain knowledge of the Zimrings' claim to the extension and the Attorney General negotiated on the basis of the Zimrings' title in and to the extension. For the majority to aver that in collecting real property taxes from the Zimrings on the new land, the tax department acted beyond its authority is to ignore the entire history of the State's dealing with private landholders who claimed abutting lava extensions from the 1868 flow through 1965. The State, and its Tax Department, could scarcely feign ignorance of the fact that lava flows had overrun seashore boundaries of private owners in that nearly hundred years and that the State's actions (or actions of its predecessors) in respect to these newly created lands had legal significance. I believe the trial court's Findings of Facts are amply supported by the undisputed evidence and are a sufficient basis, even without more, for dismissing the State's action to quiet title in the subject land.