Calaca v. Caldeira
| Decision Date | 27 December 1900 |
| Citation | 13 Haw. 214 |
| Parties | MANUEL NUNES CALACA v. ANTONE MARKS CALDEIRA. |
| Court | Hawaii Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HEREEXCEPTION FROM CIRCUIT COURT, SECOND CIRCUIT.
Syllabus by the Court
The Commissioner of Private Ways and Water Rights must decide in accordance with vested rights. He cannot grant a way over another's property merely because he thinks the party desiring it ought to have it.
A way of necessity may be implied from a grant. It cannot arise in favor of or against a stranger merely because of necessity.
Hons & Coke for plaintiff.
E. Johnson and J. Richardson for defendant.
This case comes here on exceptions from the Circuit Court, to which it went on appeal from the Commissioner of Private Ways and Water Rights for the District of Makawao, Island of Maui. There are three lots through or near which a government road runs. Lot 1 is owned by the plaintiff. Lot 2 was formerly owned by a third person who sold to the plaintiff a right of way over it to lot 1 from the road as then located, and afterwards sold lot 2 itself to the defendant, who also owns lot 3, which he obtained from another person who owned it at the time the right of way over lot 2 was granted. The road has now been changed so as to run through lot 3 about 100 or 150 feet distant from the point at which the way over lot 2 joined the old road. This action is brought to secure a continuation of this way over lot 3 to the present road.
Apparently the Commissioner and the Circuit Judge each thought that he was to decide whether the plaintiff ought to have the right of way. The Commissioner held that he ought, because it would be inconvenient to get from his lot to the road by another way. The Circuit Judge held that he ought not, because he could get out by the other way and it would make the government road dangerous if he should be allowed to get out by the proposed way,-on account of the grading that would be required. Counsel in this court objected that the Circuit Judge so decided from his personal view of the locality and that he ought not to have done so, because the case was submitted to him on the evidence taken before the Commissioner; and contended affirmatively that the way should be allowed as a way of necessity.
Authorities differ as to how urgent the necessity must be in order to give rise to a way of necessity, but this is not a case in which...
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Mossman v. Hawaiian Trust Co.
...summary judgment though for reasons which, as to the Statute of Frauds, are different from those given by the trial court. See Calaca v. Caldeira, 13 Haw. 214; Re Application Kaimuki Land Co., 35 Haw. 254; Akai v. Lewis, 37 Haw. 374, 379. The mandate will show that the case is remanded for ......