Court Opinion

ID: 9542921
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:40:23.556317+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:09:16.988927
License: Public Domain

DISSENTING OPINION OF
NAKAMURA, J.
The court declares “[t]he sole issue in this case is whether the DLNR’s adoption of State Park Regulation 2.32 (1971) and the successor DLNR Rule 13-145-35 (1981) prohibiting nudity in stale parks satisfied the substantive public notice requirement of the Hawaii Administrative Procedure Act, HRS § 91 — 3[,]”and it concludes “theadoption of the 1971 State Park Regulation was invalid and unenforceable ab initio [and] the 1981 successor DLNR ... is similarly invalid.” The issue in my view is whether the notice published in 1981 furnished sufficient notice of the proposed amendment of the rules governing the operation of the Hawaii State Parks System, and like the trial court I conclude “[t]he notice published in the Honolulu Star Bulletin on April 7, 1981, and in the Maui News on April 8,1981, provided sufficient, timely and substantive notice to the public of prospective changes to Chapter 145 of the Rules of the Hawaii State Park Syslem[.]” The opinion of the majority effectively invalidates all the rules governing the State Park System on a questionable ground that rules repealed in 1981 were not validly adopted in 1971, andl dissent.
I.
In June of 1971, the State Board of Land and Natural Resources published notices of public hearings to be conducted in July on Oahu, Kauai, Maui, and Hawaii “[t]o afford all interested persons an opportunity to submit data, views, arguments, orally or in writing, in connection with the amendment of: BOARD RESOLUTION NO. 1 PROVIDING FOR THE REGULATION AND CONTROL OF STATE PARKS, OUTDOOR RECREATIONAL AREAS AND HISTORIC SITES.” After the hearings were held, the Board adopted a new regulation “Relating to the Regulation and Control of the State Parks System.” The regulation, denomi*140nated Board Regulation No. 1, was approved by the Governor on February 18,1972 and remained in effect, apparently without challenge, until 1981. Section 2.32 of Board Regulation No. 1 proscribed nudity in State parks; its relevant provisions read:
Swimming and bathing are permitted on the premises except in waters and at times where such activities are prohibited in the interest of public health or safety. Such excepted waters shall be designated by posted signs. Nude bathing, nude swimming or nude sun bathing [sic] or walking or remaining on the premises in the nude is prohibited.
(Emphasis added).
An amendment of the Hawaii Administrative Procedure Act that prescribed a uniform format for the publication, filing, and indexing of rules by all State agencies compelled the Board to recast its rules in the prescribed format in 1981. But before it did so, the Board published notices of public hearings, apprising the public thereby of its intention to amend the rules. The notices, in relevant part, stated:
Pursuant to provisions of Chapter 91, Hawaii Revised Statutes, and all other laws applicable thereto, public hearings will be conducted by the Board of Land and Natural Resources to afford all interested parties the opportunities to submit oral and written data, views, arguments, or other testimony concerning the repeal and adoption of administrative rules relating to:
1) Administration of the Department of Land and Natural Resources, including rules of practice and procedure, rules pertaining to Conservation Districts, and rules dealing with the Alakai Wilderness and Waimanu Estuarine Sanctuary;
2) the Hawaii State Parks System; and
3) the Historic Places Review Board and the Hawaii and National Registers of Historic Places.
The proposed action includes repeal of an obsolete regulation restricting mineral exploration of submerged lands. Besides making substantive changes to existing rules, the proposed action involves changes in the format of the rules to conform to the provisions of Section 9 lM.2, Hawaii Revised Statutes, which requires all State regulations to follow a uniform format.
*141Copies of the proposed Administrative Rules and of the regulations to be repealed are available for public inspection at the Department of Land and Natural Resources, 1151 Punchbowl Street, Room 131, Honolulu, Hawaii, and at its district offices in Lihue, Kauai; Wailuku, Maui; and Hilo, Hawaii.
Among the views expressed by members of the public at the hearings was one that the “[p]rovision covering nudity ... should be deleted because it is covered by other state law.” The Board, however, chose not to delete all references to nudity in the amended rales; it chose instead to strike the proscription of “[njude bathing” and substitute therefor a prohibition against “taking outdoor showers in the nude.” Section 13 — 145—35(a) of the Board’s rales, as adopted in 1981, thus read:
(a) Swimming is permitted on the premises except in waters and at times where swimming may be prohibited in the interest of public health or safety. These waters shall be designated by posted signs. Nude swimming, nude sunbathing, walking or remaining on the premises in the nude, or taking outdoor showers in the nude is prohibited.
(Emphasis added).
The court now holds “the adoption of the 1971 State Park Regulation was invalid and unenforceable ab initio for failure to comply with the substantive notice requirements of HRS § 91-3 [and] the 1981 successor DLNR Rule ... is similarly invalid.”
II.
But the defendant was not charged with violating the 1971 State Park Regulation, and a perusal of the record dispels any notion that the public was not duly informed in 1981 that the rules proposed for adoption would prohibit “nude swimming, nude sunbathing, walking or remaining on the premises [of a State park] in the nude.”
When Board Regulation No. 1 was adopted in 1971, HRS § 91-4 compelled the Board to “file forthwith certified copies thereof with the lieutenant governor,” who maintains a “permanent register of the rules” adopted by State agencies. The register is “open to public inspection.” HRS § 91-5 further required “[e]ach agency [to]... compile, index, and publish... all rules adopted by the agency.” Since the party with the burden of establishing invalidity produced no evidence to the contrary, we *142must assume the rules adopted in 1971 found their way into the permanent register of administrative rules and were published. Moreover, the record reveals that interested members of the public knew of the 1971 rules and suggested the deletion of references therein to nudity.
The court nonetheless invalidates the rules promulgated in 1981 on the basis of a purported failure by the Board to follow the notice provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act in 1971. Knowing no principle of law that would justify the invalidation of rules on a ground that rules no longer in effect were invalid, I would affirm the district court’s conclusion that the Board “provided sufficient, timely and substantive notice to the public of prospective changes to Chapter 145 of the Rules of the Hawaii State Park System [.]”