Bradford v. State of Hawaii

• Decision Date: 10 March 1994
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 93-00309 DAE.
• Citation: 846 F. Supp. 1411
• Parties: George BRADFORD, Plaintiff, v. STATE OF HAWAII, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Hawaii

846 F. Supp. 1411

George BRADFORD, Plaintiff, v. STATE OF HAWAII, et al., Defendants.

Civ. No. 93-00309 DAE.

United States District Court, D. Hawaii.

March 10, 1994.

Burt L. Snyder, Honolulu, HI, Kenneth J. Cusack, Gaitan & Cusack, Seattle, WA, for plaintiff.

David A. Webber, Rodney J. Tam, Office of the Atty. Gen., State of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, for defendants.

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT AND DENYING PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

DAVID ALAN EZRA, District Judge.

The court heard the parties' cross motions for summary judgment on March 7, 1994. Burt Snyder, Esq., and David Onsager, Esq., appeared on behalf of plaintiff; David Webber, Esq., appeared on behalf of defendants. In this case, the plaintiff challenges the requirement of the State of Hawaii, Board of Professional Engineers, Architects, Surveyors, and Landscape Architects, that surveyors have a working knowledge of certain Hawaiian language terms used in surveying in the State of Hawaii. For the reasons stated below, the court finds the requirement constitutional and accordingly grants summary judgment in favor of the defendants.

BACKGROUND

A surveyor is defined in the Hawaii Revised Statutes as "a person who holds oneself out as able to make, or who does make cadastral surveys of areas for their correct determination and description, either for conveyancing or for the establishment or reestablishment of land boundaries or the plotting of lands and subdivisions thereof." H.R.S. § 464-1. The Professional Land Surveyor's Licensing Exam in Hawaii is administered in four parts, all of which a candidate must pass in order to receive his license.¹ Part III of the test is entitled "Hawaiian Land Matters." Some of the questions in Part III require an applicant to translate into English certain Hawaiian terms which are commonly used in land surveying in Hawaii. The other three portions of the test require no knowledge of any Hawaiian surveying terms. The examination questions and instructions are written in English, and the exams are graded anonymously. Kubota Declaration at ¶ 3.

Hawaii has incorporated knowledge of the Hawaiian land system into its surveyor's exam because this information is frequently used and interpreted by surveyors in Hawaii. Private land titles in Hawaii were initially issued as Land Commission Awards by the Board of Land Commissioners to Quiet Land Titles between 1846 and 1855. Over nine thousand individual claims were awarded by the Land Commission, in which all but a few were issued on lands that were surveyed and described by metes and bounds written in the Hawaiian language. Nuha Declaration at ¶ 2. Many later land grants and deeds also contain Hawaiian language terms. Ninomiya Declaration at ¶ 4. Surveyors in Hawaii must be familiar with both the Hawaiian land system² and these basic terms in order to adequately assess the condition of the land. Yamasaki Declaration at ¶ 2; Ninomiya Declaration at ¶ 4; Saiki Declaration at ¶ 2; Nuha Declaration at ¶ 2; Hee Declaration at ¶ 2. Often these judgments must be made on the spot, because many landowners in Hawaii will allow the surveyor to inspect the documents only in the owner's presence. Ninomiya Declaration at ¶ 4; Hee Declaration at ¶ 2. However, a surveyor's working knowledge of these key terms need not approach fluency in the Hawaiian language in order for the surveyor to satisfactorily interpret land grants and deeds. Nuha Declaration at ¶ 2; Saiki Declaration at ¶ 2.

Plaintiff George Bradford sat for the licensing exam for Professional Land Surveying in Hawaii on April 9, 1991. At that time, he was already licensed as a professional surveyor by the States of Alaska and Washington, and later became licensed in Oregon. Prior to sitting for the Hawaii exam, plaintiff obtained registration/information materials from the Board of Professional Engineers, Architects, Surveyors, and Landscape Architects ("the Board" or "the Board of Professional Engineers, et al."), the entity which designs and administers the surveyor's exam. Bradford Declaration at ¶ 6. The standard information sheet which the Board sent to plaintiff did not specifically mention that Part III of the test required knowledge of Hawaiian terms.³ It did, however, refer the plaintiff to the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping ("ACSM") for questions regarding Part III of the test. Exhibit A to Bradford Declaration.

After his first unsuccessful attempt to contact the ACSM, plaintiff received a letter from the ACSM in response to his request for review materials for the exam.⁴ Bradford Declaration at ¶ 9-11. The ACSM told plaintiff that it had no official review materials, because the annual workshops conducted by the Hawaii Association of Land Surveyors and the Hawaii Section of the ACSM had varied instructors and materials. Exhibit B to Bradford Declaration. However, the Chairman of the ACSM referred the plaintiff to two books from which candidates frequently study for the Hawaiian Land Titles portion (Part III) of the exam.⁵ Id. The Chairman also invited the plaintiff to attend the March review sessions, and reminded him that he needed working knowledge of the Hawaii system in order to practice as a professional land surveyor in Hawaii. Id.

At the time he sat for the exam, plaintiff was unfamiliar with the Hawaiian language in general, and with the Hawaiian land terms in particular. Bradford Declaration at ¶ 4. He was thus unable to answer the questions in Part III requiring translation, and his score on Part III of the exam was zero. He also received a zero score on Part IV of the exam, which required him to solve practical problems. See Exhibit E to Kubota Declaration. Because he failed to pass each section of the exam,⁶ plaintiff was denied his surveyor's license in Hawaii.

According to the plaintiff, surveying work was immediately available to him and waiting for him in the summer of 1991. Bradford Declaration at ¶ 13. He declares that both Randy Holtz and Keith Unger were willing and able to provide him with work in July of 1991,⁷ and that denial of his license robbed him of this job opportunity. He also asserts that denial of his license prevented him from pursuing additional surveying work in the subsequent months. Id.

Plaintiff filed the above-captioned lawsuit against the defendants, alleging that the inclusion of Hawaiian terms on the surveyor's exam violates his constitutional rights. Specifically, plaintiff alleges that the test discriminates against non-native Hawaiians and against out-of-staters, who, according to the plaintiff, have no way of learning of the Hawaiian language requirement. Plaintiff has alleged violations of 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983 based on violation of his rights to equal protection, substantive due process, and procedural due process. On January 5, 1994, defendants filed this motion to dismiss or for summary judgment as to all of the plaintiff's claims. In response, plaintiff filed his cross motion for partial summary judgment on February 7.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

I. Summary Judgment

Rule 56(c) provides that summary judgment shall be entered when:

The pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.

Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). The moving party has the initial burden of demonstrating for the court that there is no genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2552, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) (citing Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144, 90 S.Ct. 1598, 26 L.Ed.2d 142 (1970)). However, the moving party need not produce evidence negating the existence of an element for which the opposing party will bear the burden of proof at trial. Id. 477 U.S. at 322, 106 S.Ct. at 2552.

Once the movant has met its burden, the opposing party has the affirmative burden of coming forward with specific facts evidencing a need for trial. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e). The opposing party cannot stand on its pleadings, nor simply assert that it will be able to discredit the movant's evidence at trial. See T.W. Elec. Serv., Inc. v. Pacific Elec. Contractors Ass'n, 809 F.2d 626, 630 (9th Cir. 1987); Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e). There is no genuine issue of fact "where the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non moving party." Matsushita Electric Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 586-87, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1356, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) (citation omitted).

At the summary judgment stage, this court may not make credibility determinations or weigh conflicting evidence. Musick v. Burke, 913 F.2d 1390, 1394 (9th Cir.1990). The standard for determining a motion for summary judgment is the same standard used to determine a motion for directed verdict: does the evidence present a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or is it so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law. Id. (citation omitted).

II. Motion to Dismiss

A motion to dismiss will be granted where the plaintiff fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). A complaint should not be dismissed unless it appears to a certainty that plaintiff can prove no set of facts which would entitle the plaintiff to relief. Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 326-27, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 1832-33, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989); Fidelity Fin. Corp. v. Federal Home Loan Bank, 792 F.2d 1432, 1435 (9th Cir.1986), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1064, 107 S.Ct. 949, 93 L.Ed.2d 998 (1987); Stender v. Lucky Stores, Inc., 766 F.Supp. 830, 831 (N.D.Cal.1991). All allegations of material fact are taken as true and construed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Stender, 766 F.Supp. at 831.

To the extent, however, that "matters outside the pleadings are presented to and not excluded by the court, the motion shall be...