Opinion ID: 1154746
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Appeals from Land Court Decrees

Text: In 1963, the Trustees alone appealed the 1767 Decree from the Lunalilo Application, whereas the Trustees and the State appealed the 1768 Decree from the Kelley Application in 1964. While the Trustees' appeal of the 1767 Decree was pending in this court, they reached a settlement with the abutting landowners (excluding the Kelleys) and quitclaimed any interest over the strip to them. The quitclaim deeds were placed in trust (settlement trust), with the abutting landowners as beneficiaries. Subsequently, by stipulation, First National Bank of Hawaii, as trustee of the settlement trust, was substituted for the Trustees and moved for dismissal of the pending appeal. Meanwhile, the State, which had appealed only the 1768 Decree, moved to consolidate its appeal with the Trustees' appeal of the 1767 Decree. This court, however, granted First National Bank's motion to dismiss the Trustees' 1767 appeal with prejudice ... there being no prejudice to the remaining respondents in the case and also denied the State's motion to consolidate. The State's appeal of the 1768 Decree, in which this court only had personal jurisdiction over the State and the Kelleys, and in rem jurisdiction over Lot A (parcel 5), presented the narrow question whether [parcel 5] ... was conveyed to the Kelleys' predecessor in title, Smith, thereby giving [the Kelleys] good title. In re Kelley, 50 Haw. at 568, 445 P.2d at 540. Despite its statement regarding the narrow scope of the appeal, this court reversed the land court's 1768 Decree and determined that the State held title, not only to parcel 5, but also to the entire strip. This court determined that: (1) the land court erred in giving title to the Kelleys to register because the Trustees did not include title to parcel 5 as part of the conveyance of the subdivision lots to the abutting landowners; (2) the Trustees had abandoned title to the strip by holding it out as a road on a 1882 subdivision map; and (3) the State had acquired the strip as of the date of the Highways Act of 1892 and the Act retrospectively divested the Trustees of title to the strip. Id. at 581, 445 P.2d at 547.