Court Opinion

ID: 9596929
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 00:54:09.760777+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:43:02.762302
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OF
KOBAYASHI, J., WITH WHOM MARUMOTO, J., JOINS
I dissent.
I find it most difficult in comprehending the rationale or the logic of the majority.
In the instant case, petitioners, appellees herein, are owners of heretofore land courted parcels of land described in Transfer Certificate of Title No. 47788. Pursuant to HRS § 501-85, petitioners filed a petition for consolidation and resubdivision of said land courted parcels of land.
HRS § 501-85 provides:
§ 501-85 Substitution, one certificate for several, several for one; subdivisions, maps. A registered owner holding one duplicate certificate for several distinct parcels of land may surrender it, with the approval of the court, and receive separate certificates for portions thereof. A registered owner holding separate duplicate certificates for two or more distinct parcels of land, which are contiguous, or which are so adjacent (although separated by a roadway or stream or other strip of land) as to form one lot of land for practical use, may surrender the certificates, and, with like approval and by a decree of the court, receive a single original and duplicate certificate for the whole, or separate certificates for subdivisions thereof, issued in place of the surrendered certificates; provided, that if any person or persons other than the registered owner appear to have an interest in *283any part of the premises proposed to be consolidated, or in any intervening roadway, stream, or strip of land as aforesaid, the court shall not entertain the application for consolidation unless the other person or persons join with the owner in the application, signing and acknowledging the same in the same manner as provided for original applications, or unless the person or persons if not joining in the application have been given notice thereof and an opportunity to be heard as shall be ordered by the court.
Any owner proposing to combine two or more parcels of land, or to subdivide any registered land, shall file with the court an application therefor, together with a map or plan showing the proposed combination or subdivision and accurately delineating thereon all boundaries, streets, passage ways, and other easements connected therewith. The court, before approving the same, and authorizing the issuance of any new certificate or certificates thereon, shall cause the same to be verified by the department of accounting and general services and be satisfied that the same are accurately represented, and that the applicant has complied with sections 65-21 to 65-26 or the county ordinances where any of these provisions apply. (Emphasis added.)
By order of the Land Court the State Land Surveyor checked a copy of the petition, a proposed map and the Transfer Certificate of Title and made the following report to the court, pertinent portions being, to-wit:
[T]he State Land Surveyor begs to report that the same has been examined and checked as to form and mathematical correctness and found to be in order.
And further, said map has been compared with Certificate of Title No. 47788 and found to be in accord therewith.
*284The attention of the court is called to the fact that a recent survey reveals that the present seashore boundary of these lots are further mauka (inland) than the highwater mark shown on this map and on Map 227 adjudicated in December of 1967. The State of Hawaii, therefore, disputes the highwater mark as shown on this map. The Attorney General requests that a hearing be granted before your Honorable Court to litigate the question of the establishment of the highwater mark.
The State of Hawaii, thereafter, filed objections to the petition for consolidation and resubdivision and asked the court to require the petitioners herein to submit to the court for approval a resurvey of the seashore boundaries of the parcels in question.
The State did not challenge petitioners’ ownership of any portion of the properties petitioners sought to consolidate and resubdivide. The State did not assert ownership of any portion of petitioners’ lands; nor was any claim of ownership made on behalf of a third party. The only thing the State sought, according to the record, was to have the trial court require the petitioners to submit a new survey of the seashore boundary on the allegation that the highwater mark had moved further mauka (inland) than as originally registered in the Certificate of Title.
The fundamental point that the majority loses sight of is our holding in In re Rosenbledt, 24 Haw. 298, 308 (1918), modified on another point in 25 Haw. 561 (1920), to-wit:
The Land Court is a court of limited jurisdiction, created for a special purpose, that of carrying into effect what is known as the Torrens title scheme, derives all of its power from the statutes relating to it, and can exercise no power not found within those statutes.
*285The provisions in HRS § 501-85 are crystal clear and without ambiguity. Nothing in said section permits the State or anyone else to use the section as a procedural vehicle to demand changes in the survey of a land courted property to reflect changes of the highwater mark or litigate the ownership of eroded land courted properties.
HRS § 501-85 clearly provides that a petitioner under said section can be challenged only if certain condition exists, to-wit:
[I]f any person or persons other than the registered owner appear to have an interest in any part of the premises proposed to be consolidated, or in any intervening roadway, stream, or strip of land ....
And if such a condition exists, HRS § 501-85 further provides how the challenge can be effectuated and also provides a procedure for the court to resolve the challenge, to-wit:
[T]he court shall not entertain the application . . . unless the other person or persons join with the owner in the application ... or unless the person or persons if not joining in the application have been given notice thereof and an opportunity to be heard as shall be ordered by the court.
The above provisions clearly show that the person joining in the application or to be given notice thereof is a person who is identifiable and who asserts or appears to have an ownership interest contra to petitioners’ claim. The Land Court can then determine whether that identifiable person has joined with the petitioners in the petition for consolidation. If no joinder, the Land Court can then give notice to the identifiable person and conduct the required hearing. Notwithstanding the clear terms of HRS § 501-85, the majority states:
[T]he State did not specifically claim title to the submerged portion of the premises. Probably the *286State did not advance such a specific claim because this court has not yet ruled as to the status of registered land eroded below the highwater mark. We agree that the State could have been more articulate in its objection and it could have been more specific on the question of ownership of submerged land below the highwater mark. We believe, however, that is not fatal to this appeal.
We now hold that whenever and however the land court is. so apprised, the mandates of HRS § 501-85 become applicable and the land court is prohibited from entertaining the application for consolidation unless the other party joins in the application or is given notice and an opportunity to be heard. Under the circumstances, we hold that the State’s act in filing the objection was proper and that it sufficiently informed the court that someone other than the registered owner, probably the State, had an interest or title to the land submerged below the highwater mark .... (Emphasis added.)
Here, contra to the record on appeal, the majority of this court is changing, creating and inserting new facts; changing, drafting and inserting new pleadings, all in the guise of a procedural vehicle to effect changes in seashore boundaries to incorporate fluctuations of the highwater mark.
The majority of the,court sets a dangerous precedent and creates uncertainty and ambiguity in an otherwise clearly stated statutory provision. The opinion, itself, imposes upon the courts and the legal profession a situation where one must ask: “Who is the someone asserting a contra claim?” Upon remand the Land Court will be at a loss as to what it should or could do.
I would affirm the Land Court’s judgment.