Opinion ID: 2612541
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Severance of Riparian and Appurtenant Rights

Text: The plaintiff taro farmers' claims to the waters of the Waihee stream are premised on McBryde v. Robinson , supra. There, we held, inter alia, that 1) HRS § 7-1, originally enacted in 1850 as section 7 of our kuleana act, imposed the natural flow doctrine of riparianism upon the waters of our state; 2) that riparian water rights appertain only to land adjoining a natural watercourse for its use; and 3) that the right to the use of water by virtue of its application to the land at the time of the Mahele, i.e., appurtenant water rights, may be used only in connection with those particular parcels of land to which that right appertains. Plaintiffs read McBryde as stating that neither appurtenant nor riparian rights can be severed from the land. Thus they contend the deed by which the BWS claims to have purchased their rights was a nullity and all water rights in the ahupuaa of Waihee are still intact. The BWS contends McBryde is not subject to being so interpreted and applied. It not only argues against any reading that would forbid the severance of water rights, but urges this court to overrule McBryde and reinstitute what it regards as prior Hawaii water law on surplus and appurtenant water rights. [9]
We decline the invitation to overrule McBryde v. Robinson , supra. We find that the rules of law posited in that opinion are applicable here. McBryde has been criticized as an unjustifiable deviation from pre-existing water law. [10] But a re-examination of the development of the laws governing water in this jurisdiction convinces us of its soundness. Our local system of water rights is based upon and is an outgrowth of ancient Hawaiin customs and methods of Hawaiians in dealing with the subject of water. Territory v. Gay, 31 Haw. 376, 395 (1930). In ancient times there was no resource more precious. Although there is a belief that at some point this resource was transformed into a freely transferable private commodity, we do not find this to be so. For in McBryde we re-examined what some believed to be the foundation of certain private rights and interests in water and found them to be fatally flawed. We therefore set about to correct these errors of the past, as it was both our duty and prerogative to do. Our understanding of the necessity for the holdings in McBryde begins with the native system of water allocation. This system has been recently described as follows: Perhaps the essential feature of the ancient water system was that water was guaranteed to those natives who needed it, provided they helped in the construction of the irrigation system. Because agriculture was a matter of great importance to the Hawaiians, they were, in general, willing to contribute their efforts to the water system. The konohikis aimed to secure equal rights to all makaainana and to avoid disputes. Beneficial use of water by the makaainana were also essential to the continued delivery of water. The natives were subject to compulsory maintenance work on the auwais under the supervision of the konohiki. The konohiki, on the other hand, was reluctant to impose unreasonable burdens on the tenants because they were normally free to leave a particular plot if unhappy with the konohiki. Hence a spirit of mutual dependence and helpfulness prevailed, alike among the high and low, with respect to the use of water. (Citations omitted.) Van Dyke, Chang, Aipa, Higham, Marsden, Sur, Tagamori and Yukimoto, Water Rights in Hawaii, in Land and Water Resource Management in Hawaii 141 (1977). The foregoing characterization is uncontroverted. The system based on this spirit of mutual dependence was a stable one. While the authority for the distribution of water ultimately rested in the King, the chiefs, or their agents (konohiki), the aim of the konohiki and all others in authority was to secure equal rights to all and to avoid quarrels. Perry, A Brief History of Hawaiian Water Rights 7 (1912). This benevolent attitude was not a product of indifference to the application of water nor of overabundance. On the contrary, the cooperative nature of the system appears to have stemmed from the critical import of water in the lives of the people. For example, the Hawaiian word kanawai denoting law or laws related originally to regulations regarding water. Id. at 3. Interference with existing auwais was punishable by death, and the body of the offender was used to repair whatever damage done to deter further offenses. Nakuina, Ancient Hawaiian Water Rights, in Thrums Hawaiian Annual 79 (1894). Failure to keep one's auwai in repair was a ground for the cutting off of water privileges. Id. at 82. And the completion of a new watercourse was the occasion for religious thanksgiving and celebration. Id. As with the ownership of land, there were no fixed rights to water. Hutchins, The Hawaiian System of Water Rights, 21, 22 (1946). Rather, water privileges were earned through participation in the construction of the irrigation systems and retained only by the productive application of the waters to which one was thereby entitled. Handy and Handy, Native Planters in Old Hawaii 31 (1972). Inasmuch as the prosperity of the landlord was dependent upon the productivity of all of his assigned lands, he necessarily attempted to insure that maximum benefit was achieved through the application of the vital resource. Id. at 279. In times of plenty, all shared in nature's munificence; in times of scarcity, allocation was resorted to in order to insure the survival of all. The nature of the activity to which water was applied reinforced the cooperative aspects of its allocation. Id. See also, Earl, Control Hierarchies in the Traditional Irrigation Economy of the Halelea District, Kauai, Hawaii, 160 (1973). The principal crop requiring irrigation was taro, the staple of the native Hawaiian lifestyle. The irrigation of taro called for flowing water, most of which was not consumed by the land. Hence, a cooperative system whereby unused waters were returned to their source or allowed to flow into lower adjoining patches maximized the application of the resource. Handy & Handy, Native Planters in Old Hawaii, supra. The limitations of technology also fostered cooperation, for the irrigational systems required in the culture of taro could only be constructed through the joint efforts of those who would benefit thereby. That the labor of the commoners would be rewarded by the just application of the resource to their land was insured by the fact that they were not serfs tied to the land by any particular obligation to the landlord, but were free to leave at any time and begin their efforts anew in virtually any uncultivated area. Van Dyke et al., Water Rights in Hawaii, supra. Finally, it was entirely to the advantage of the konohiki or landlord that water be allocated according to industry and need. Prior to the imposition of western ways water had little value apart from its application. Thus, it was considered strictly a resource to be used when required, not a commodity. In an agrarian society where technological capacity for storage or long range transport was nonexistent, there was simply no value in hoarding water or in even fixing an amount to which any person would be entitled. This was, of course, to change. In 1840 the first constitution of the Kingdom of Hawaii proclaimed that although all property belonged to the crown it was not his private property. It belonged to the Chiefs and the people in common, of whom [the King] was the head and had the management of landed property. Hawaii Const. of 1840 in Fundamental Laws of Hawaii 3 (1904). Thus, prior to the Mahele, all land remained in the public domain. However, other laws passed during the same period laid the foundation for the eventual imposition of private property rights in land by limiting the King's and landlords' heretofore unregulated authority to disseize one to whom land had been granted and insuring certain rights of the common people and lessor lords. In contrast, the law governing the regulation of water, passed in 1839, instead of affirming private authority, treated the resource as a benefit reserved to the community. Specifically, the law Respecting Water for Irrigation provided that: In all places which are watered by irrigation, those farms which have not formerly received a division of water, shall when this new regulation respecting lands is circulated, be supplied in accordance with this law, the design of which is to correct in full all those abuses which men have introduced. All those farms which were formerly denied a division of the water, shall receive their equal proportion. Those bounties which God has provided for the several places should be equally distributed, in order that there may be an equal distribution of happiness among all those who labor in those places. The allowance of water shall be in proportion to the amount of taxes paid by the several lands. For it is not the design of this law to withhold unjustly from one, in order to unjustly enrich another according to the old system which has been in vogue down to the present time. That the land agents and the lazy class of persons who live about us should be enriched to the impoverishment of the lower classes who with patience toil under their burdens and in the heat of the sun is not in accordance with the designs of the law ... . Such is considered to be the proper course by this law, regulating the property of the kingdom; not in accordance with the former customs of the country which was for the chiefs and land agents to monopolize to themselves every source of profit. Not so with this law. (Emphasis added.) Laws of 1842 in Fundamental Laws of Hawaii 29 (1904). The law, passed a mere six years prior to the Mahele, is significant both in terms of its provisions and obvious underlying sentiment. The distribution of water is predicated not upon servience to the landlord of an ahupuaa but rather on taxes paid to the crown, thereby suggesting that the control of all waters lay with the central government rather than the landlords. Also noteworthy is the continued treatment of water as a natural bounty to be distributed according to industry and need rather than by virtue of control of the surrounding lands. The law may have been a result of the destruction of natural restraints on the konohiki's historical authority over water. [11] As long as the konohiki was reliant upon the labor of the tenants both to work his own land and to insure the improvement of his ahupuaa, he was bound to a system of equitable distribution of water to insure mutual benefit. The advent of the western mercantile society diminished reliance upon the working of the land as a basis of wealth. Thus, with the introduction of the western concept of material wealth, water itself tended to be considered a commodity. In the absence of the natural limitation on abuses of authority, a need for the imposition of an equitable order becomes apparent if the King desired that this natural bounty be shared equally among his people. The next major step in the evolution of private property rights was the formation in 1845 of the Board of Land Commissioners to quiet land titles. See Law Creating the Board of Commissioners to Quiet Land Titles, in Fundamental Laws of Hawaii 137 (1904). It was the Land Commission's responsibility to ascertain or reject claims of interests in land brought before it. Decisions of the Board were to be made in accordance with the civil law and native customs of the Kingdom. The Board itself was not empowered to grant fee simple title to land. Rather, its duty was to define each applicant's identifiable interests in land and issue an award describing those interests. Actual title to land could be gained only by a payment of commutation to the Kingdom and issuance of a royal patent. See, Chinen, The Great Mahele: Hawaii's Land Division of 1848 (1958). To carry out its duties, the Land Commission adopted principles that were to be followed in quieting title to land. The principles were subsequently also adopted by the legislative council of the Kingdom and were made binding rules by which all claims to land would be tested. Laws of 1847 at 81, RLH 1925, Vol. II at 2124. In its statement of principles the Land Commission related the necessity of its establishment to the unenforceability of the laws passed at the time of the Constitution of 1840, noting that: Neither the laws of 1839 nor of 1840 were found adequate to protect the inferior lords and tenants, for although the violators of law, of every rank, were liable to its penalty, yet it was so contrary to ancient usage, to execute the law on the powerful for the protection of the weak, that the latter often suffered, and it was found necessary to adopt a new system for ascertaining rights, and new measures for protecting those rights when ascertained, and to accomplish this object the Land Commission was formed. The Land Commission therefore viewed its responsibilities as including the actualization of the laws of 1839 and 1840, among them, of course, the law governing water for irrigation which persisted in treating water as a commonly held resource. Thus, when in the next paragraph the Board reserves from allocation to private persons the sovereign prerogatives of the King, including the power: To encourage and even to enforce the usufruct of lands for the common good[,] it is clear that in accordance with pre-existing civil law and native usage, the Commission intended to reserve to the sovereign the right to regulate and allocate water resources in accord with the needs of the people of the Kingdom. We therefore concur with the conclusion reached in McBryde that: [T]he Mahele and subsequent Land Commission Award and issuance of Royal Patent right to water was not intended to be, could not be, and was not transferred to the awardee, and the ownership of water in natural watercourses, streams and rivers remained in the people of Hawaii for their common good. 54 Haw. at 186-87, 504 P.2d at 1339. An expression of the will of the sovereign with respect to waters is next found in section 7 of the Enactment of Further Principles. Laws of 1850, p. 202. This section provided in relevant part that: The people also shall have the right to drinking water, and running water and the right of way. The springs of water and running water, and roads shall be free to all, should they need them, on all lands granted in fee simple; provided, that this shall not be applicable to wells and water courses which individuals have made for their own use. In McBryde meaning was given to this language for the first time when we ruled that the statute, at the time of its passage, imposed the natural flow doctrine of riparianism upon the waters of the Kingdom. We continue to find this interpretation to be appropriate and proper. First, the doctrine is consistent with the needs of native commoners at the time of the law's passage. Taro, the predominant agricultural crop, grew best where a steady flow of running water, most of which could be subsequently utilized by lower riparian users, occurred; the cultivation of taro took place principally upon riparian lands; and grants to commoners were restricted to lands they had in fact cultivated. Second, the principles underlying the doctrine are consistent with those that appear to pervade the native system of water allocation and pre-existing civil law inasmuch as: title to the water was not equated with the right to use; each person's right to use was of a correlative nature; and rights to use were predicated upon beneficial application of the water to the land. And third, the presence of the riparian doctrine in this jurisdiction had, prior to 1930, been repeatedly adverted to in our caselaw. See, e.g., Peck v. Bailey, 8 Haw. 658, 661 (1867) (dicta describing riparian landowners' rights to water); Davis v. Afong, 5 Haw. 216 (1884) (spring and underground streams treated according to riparian principles); Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co. v. Wailuku Sugar Co., 15 Haw. 675 (1904) (surplus water defined as water not covered by prescription or riparian rights). In McBryde, we did not lightly infer that a judicially determined system of water rights was subject to alteration. Quite to the contrary, our decision there was premised on the firm conviction that prior courts had largely ignored the mandates of the rulers of the Kingdom and the traditions of the native Hawaiians in their zeal to convert these islands into a manageable western society. Horner v. Kumuliilii, 10 Haw. 174 (1895), illustrates some of the difficulties experienced in translating a system of water rights predicated upon mutual benefit into one based on private rights. The case involved the claim of the Pioneer Mill to the waters of the Kauaula Stream, which runs through the valley of the same name on the island of Maui. The valley divided into numerous ilis, ahupuaas and kuleanas, each of which shared in the waters of the stream. Under the ancient system of distribution, the valley was separated into two divisions of eleven land units each. Water was distributed to each unit by way of auwais that ran from the stream. Each unit received water once every eleven days, with a unit from one division taking by day and another by night. The plaintiff-plantation became the owner and occupant of much of the land of the valley; after having violated the ancient system for more than twenty years, it claimed a prescriptive right to all the water it needed and also sought the strict imposition of the ancient system of rotation on the remaining natives. Exercising equitable powers, the court reinstituted the ancient system of rotation. In dicta, however, it expressed misgivings about the imposition of a fixed system of personal water rights and the inefficiency of such a transmutation of the ancient system. It noted that the eleven-day system was a product of an agreement of the konohikis of the various ahupuaas and ilis and that under the ancient system: The konohiki endeavored to secure equality of division and to avoid troublesome quarrels between the tenants; and when the quantum of water in the stream diminished through drought he saw to it that the quantity used by each was divided equally. (W)hen one kuleana seemed to need more water than the others at any particular time the konohiki on request would allow a constant small stream of water to continue in the particular auwai, after the patches were filled and while the main body of land was receiving its assigned supply... . If the plaintiffs are konohikis of the various ahupuaas and ilis owned by them and are successors of the rights of the konohikis and insist upon them they ought to bear the burdens and responsibilities of the konohikis. But supplies of water by permission do not create a right to them and the court cannot compel favors to be granted. (Emphasis added.) Id. at 178, 179. The western doctrine of property has traditionally implied certain rights. Among these are the right to the use of the property, the right to exclude others and the right to transfer the property with the consent of the owner. In conformance with creation of private interests in land, each of these rights were embodied in the delineation of post-Mahele judicial water rights. Ostensibly, this judge-made system of rights was an outgrowth of Hawaiian custom in dealing with water. However, the creation of private and exclusive interests in water, within a context of western concepts regarding property, compelled the drawing of fixed lines of authority and interests which were not consonant with Hawaiian custom. Thus, the distinction drawn between rights and supplies by permission or favors in Horner, while making perfect sense within the western understanding of property, would make no sense at all under the ancient system of allocation. Under the ancient system both the self-interest and responsibility of the konohikis would have created a duty to share and to maximize benefits for the residents of the ahupuaa. In other words, under the ancient system the right of the konohiki to control water was inseparable from his duty to assist each of the deserving tenants. The private division of land and the subsequent division of water allowed for the separation of this right from the concomitant duty. The pattern of isolating a traditional right from its correlative duties and obligations continued to serve as a basis for the evolution of private interests in water. Thus, in 1896 the court condoned the sale and transfer of appurtenant water on the grounds that interahupuaa transfers were made in ancient times, [12] ignoring the fact that such transfers were undoubtedly made to satisfy some particular communal purpose and not for the exclusive benefit of a particular transferor or transferee. Similarly, in 1904, surplus water was deemed the property of the konohiki of the ahupuaa of its origin since no limitation ... existed or was supposed to exist to his power to use the surplus waters as he saw fit. [13] Again, the essential nature of the konohiki's customary powers over the waters of his ahupuaa was disregarded, and an individual was granted a personal right to profit, presumably by virtue of ancient authority, from the sale and application of water without regard for the consequences to those who historically would have been within his charge. [14] We cannot continue to ignore what we firmly believe were fundamental mistakes regarding one of the most precious of our resources. McBryde was a necessary and proper step in the rectification of basic misconceptions concerning water rights in Hawaii.
Having acknowledged and ratified McBryde's vitality, we turn to the question of whether the riparian rights of the plaintiffs were effectively severed and transferred by the language of the various deeds of title purporting to do so. We conclude they were not. BWS argues, and we agree, that even the natural flow theory of riparianism does not, in most jurisdictions, prohibit the annulment or severance of riparian rights by contract. See, 1 Clark, Waters and Water Rights, 70 (1967). But riparian rights in Hawaii are of statutory rather than common law origin. The privileges and rights attaching to riparian land should therefore be determined consistently with the statute to which their genesis is traceable. Riparian rights in Hawaii are a product of the people's statutory rights to flowing and running water currently embodied in HRS § 7-1 (1976). HRS § 7-1 was originally enacted in 1850 as section 7 of what has come to be known as the Kuleana Act. The first six sections of the Act enabled the common people of Hawaii to secure fee simple title to the lands they actually cultivated. The seventh section contained the rights that were to accompany a commoner's tenancy. The section was drafted at the behest of the King and was reported to reflect his concern that [a] little bit of land even with allodial title, if they be cut off from all other privileges would be of very little value. Privy Council Minutes, July 13, 1850. Thus, it appears that the riparian water rights of HRS § 7-1 were established to enable tenants of ahupuaas to make productive use of their lands. Riparian rights in Hawaii are thus analogous to the federally reserved water rights accruing to Indian reservations pursuant to Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564, 28 S.Ct. 207, 52 L.Ed. 340 (1908). In words reminiscent of Hawaii's King, the Supreme Court has described that decision as follows: The Court in Winters concluded that the Government, when it created [an] Indian Reservation, intended to deal fairly with the Indians by reserving for them the waters without which their lands would have been useless. Arizona v. California, 373 U.S. 546, 600, 83 S.Ct. 1468, 1497, 10 L.Ed.2d 542 (1963). The Court in Winters thus implied from a treaty establishing the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation a reservation of enough unappropriated waters to fulfill the purposes of the treaty. The issue of the transferability of Indian water rights vested pursuant to the Winters doctrine has also arisen. See generally Palma, Considerations and Conclusions Concerning the Transferability of Indian Water Rights, 20 Nat.Res.J. 91 (1980). We find a particular federal court's treatment of this analogous situation instructive. In Colville Confederated Tribes v. Walton, 460 F. Supp. 1320 (E.D.Wash. 1978), the question before the court was whether the water rights reserved to Indian reservations were effectively transferred to subsequent non-Indian purchasers of reservation lands. The court, looking to the underlying rationale for the implied reservation of water, concluded that they were not. Id. at 1328. It reasoned that since, under the Winters doctrine, water was impliedly reserved to ensure that the land set aside for a permanent homeland would have water necessary for the purposes of the reservation, the water right was implicitly limited to purposes of the reservation and were therefore extinguished when the lands passed from Indian hands. Cf. Cappaert v. United States, 426 U.S. 128, 141, 96 S.Ct. 2062, 2070, 48 L.Ed.2d 523 (1976) (implied federal reservations of water limited to only that amount necessary to fulfill the purposes of the reservation, no more.). But see United States v. Adair, 478 F. Supp. 336 (D.Ore. 1979) (permitting transfer of Winters doctrine rights because it would advance the purpose of permitting Indians to sell their lands on equal terms with non-Indians). We find such reasoning highly persuasive and applicable to the situation before us. And we likewise conclude that the nature of the water rights provided in HRS § 7-1 are limited by the purposes for their establishment. We are equally convinced that the creation of an independent source of profit for the possessors of water rights was not included among such purposes. The language of the statute itself, referring specifically to other articulated rights, provides that privileges enumerated in that section were for their [the people's] own use, but they shall not have the right to take such articles to sell for profit. HRS § 7-1. We conclude that the riparian water rights created by HRS § 7-1 were not intended to be, and cannot be, severed from the land in any fashion. Their sole purpose is to provide water to make tenants' lands productive  no other incident of ownership attached. The trial judge in this case thus correctly ruled that all attempts to sever or extinguish the riparian rights of the plaintiffs were ineffective. Additional support for this conclusion is found in Damon v. Tsutsui, 31 Haw. 678 (1930), which involved an attempt by a landlord to sever by deed certain fishing rights that had been statutorily reserved to tenants. The court held the attempted severance was without effect as to the original tenant's successor in interest. It reasoned that the severance was ineffective because the fishing rights simply were not the landlord's to convey because the tenant receives his rights through the statute, (emphasis added) id. at 689, rather than from his predecessor in interest. Here, as in Damon, the riparian rights purportedly reserved in the plaintiff's respective deeds were statutory creations. They were therefore not subject to reservation by deed; they were not the grantor's to reserve.
Unlike riparian rights, appurtenant water rights are incidents of land ownership. In the first of our recorded cases governing water rights the nature and foundation of these rights were described thusly: [When a grantor] has conveyed portions [of an] ahupuaa to several persons ... [e]ach grantee will hold all that has been conveyed to him, unless it should conflict with a previous conveyance. This includes the [artificial] water on their lands and all the water which the lands had enjoyed from time immemorial. Peck v. Bailey, supra at 662. These rights were characterized by the court as appurtenant to ... lands, id., and superior to riparian rights inasmuch as they constituted an easement in favor of the [property with an appurtenant right] as the dominant estate. Id. Thus, appurtenant water rights are rights to the use of water utilized by parcels of land at the time of their original conversion into fee simple land. In McBryde v. Robinson , supra, we ruled that the appurtenant nature of these rights precluded the transfer of such waters. We said [t]he use of the water acquired as appurtenant rights may only be used in connection with that particular parcel of land to which the right is appurtenant, overruling any contrary indications in our caselaw. 54 Haw. at 191, 504 P.2d at 1341. The trial court in this case read the foregoing limitation to preclude the severance of such rights so that the deeds purporting to transfer or reserve plaintiffs' water rights were of no effect with respect to any appurtenant rights which attached to their lands. We agree that the rule posited in McBryde prevents the effective severance or transfer of appurtenant water rights. This position is consistent with the general rule that appurtenant easements attach to the land to be benefited and cannot exist or be utilized apart from the dominant estate. ALI, Restat.Prop. § 487, comment b. We find, however, that while no appurtenant rights were effectively transferred in this case, the deed that attempted to reserve such rights had the effect of extinguishing them. For while easements appurtenant may not be utilized for other than the dominant estate, [t]here is nothing to prevent a transferor from effectively providing that the benefit of an easement appurtenant shall not pass to the transferee of the dominant [estate]. Id. There appears to be no question here that the plaintiffs' grantors, in attempting to reserve the water rights to themselves in spite of the transfer of the lands, intended to extinguish those rights which would otherwise have attached to plaintiffs' lands. While the nature of the water rights involved necessarily precluded the former, nothing would preclude the giving of effect to the latter. Thus, while the trial court correctly ruled that the BWS could not have acquired the appurtenant water rights of the plaintiffs because of McBryde, it erred in holding that the plaintiffs' lands retained such rights, inasmuch as they were effectively extinguished by the attempted reservation of such rights.