Opinion ID: 1386452
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The 1859 and 1864 Reverter Statutes and the Effect of Repeal in 1896

Text: The 1850 Act, by providing that school and church lots shall be reserved as government property, devoted to the purposes above mentioned, conferred on the government an estate in fee simple absolute. However, under an 1859 statute the government's interest in those lots which had been granted by private parties was diminished to a fee simple determinable, i.e., a fee simple subject to a possibility of reverter. The 1859 statute provided: All sites for school houses and ... public worship... which have been granted by or to the government, for the purpose of promoting ... education or religion, shall be reserved as government property, so long as they are devoted to the purposes for which they were granted ...; and in case they shall cease to be used for the purposes for which they were granted, for not less than one year, they shall revert to the original grantors, or their representatives. Civil Code 1859, § 752; RLH 1925, at 2185 (emphasis added). See also Laws 1864, at 46; RLH 1925, at 2186-2187. Thus the original grantors of school and church lots gained possibilities of reverter in such lots. But the government was presumably the original grantor in a number of instances, [4] in which event the government's possibility of reverter merged with its fee simple determinable so as to leave undiminished the government's fee simple absolute. The 1859 reverter statute was repealed by an 1864 statute, which however contained a nearly identical reverter provision. Laws 1864, at 46. In 1896, the entire 1864 statute was repealed in a sentence, thus inter alia repealing the reverter clause. Laws 1896, c. 57 § 44. In the instant case it is unnecessary to decide whether or not Victoria Kamamalu was the original grantor of the Holualoa and Kahalu'u lots and thereby possessed of a possibility of reverter under the 1859 and 1864 statutes. The events which would have triggered reverter, i.e., discontinuance of school and church uses, failed to occur prior to repeal in 1896 of the 1864 statute. It is true that the trial court found a discontinuance of school uses on both lots after 1888, but this court interprets the reverter statutes as requiring a discontinuance of both school and church uses before reverter could occur. The language of the 1859 and 1864 reverter statutes, taken in conjunction with the broad language of the 1850 Act and with the fact that many of the early school teachers were also missionaries, indicates that religion and education were then deemed interrelated, joint purposes. Under a proper construction of the early statutes, the school and church lots were set aside to promote the joint purposes of education and religion, as those terms are broadly defined, and as opposed to the idea that some lots were granted solely for education in its limited modern sense while other lots were granted solely for religion. [5] The State now owns the Holualoa and Kahalu'u lots in fee simple absolute, either under the theory that the Hawaiian government was the original grantor and has always owned both lots in fee simple absolute, or under the theory that the government's title, made defeasible by the 1859 reverter statute, ripened into fee simple absolute in 1896 when the 1864 reverter statute was repealed. [6]