Robinson v. Ariyoshi

• Decision Date: 29 December 1982
• Docket Number: No. 8241,8241
• Citation: 65 Haw. 641,658 P.2d 287
• Parties: Selwyn A. ROBINSON, et al., Appellees, v. George R. ARIYOSHI, Governor, et al., Appellants, and McBryde Sugar Company, Limited, Appellees.
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

Page 287

658 P.2d 287

65 Haw. 641

Selwyn A. ROBINSON, et al., Appellees, v. George R. ARIYOSHI, Governor, et al., Appellants and McBryde Sugar Company, Limited, Appellees.

No. 8241.

Supreme Court of Hawai'i.

Dec. 29, 1982.

Syllabus by the Court

1. In water rights determinations, it is the prerogative and duty of a court not merely to apportion the waters of a watercourse but to define the scope of identified rights and insure the equitability of the effect of its determinations.

2. Ruling in McBryde Sugar Co. v. Robinson, 54 Haw. 174, 504 P.2d 1330, aff'd on rehearing, 55 Haw. 260, 517 P.2d 26 (1973), appeal dismissed and cert. denied, 417 U.S. 962, 94 S.Ct. 3164, 41 L.Ed.2d 1135 (1974), limiting the transferability of appurtenant and riparian water right entitlements did not have the effect of actually enjoining or prohibiting the parties' diversion of water from the watershed, rather, the opinion sought only to establish that these private usufructory interests were not so broad as to include any inherent enforceable right to transmit water beyond the lands to which such private interests appertained.

3. McBryde, supra, did not discuss and therefore cannot be understood to be conclusive of the circumstances under which a private party or the State could obtain injunctive relief against unsanctioned transfers of water.

4. The issuance of any injunction against unsanctioned transfers of water is subject to all the considerations that serve to limit such equitable relief including estoppel, laches, and most particularly with respect to the wrongful diversion of water, the public use doctrine as applied to our own unique situation.

5. Under our correlative system of water rights, an action to quiet title is not an appropriate means to adjudicate controversies over the corpus of running water.

6. The objectives of res judicata and the framework used to attain these aims apply to water rights controversies just as they do to other actions.

7. Finality, for bar and merger purposes, will be lacking if an issue of law or fact essential to the adjudication of the claim has been reserved for future determination or the amount of damages, or the form or scope of other relief, remains to be determined.

8. A simple reversal of a trial court's judgment without further instruction renders that part void, as if it had never been entered.

9. When a judgment on appeal provided only that the trial court's judgment was "affirmed in part; reversed in part", no res 10. An appellate court's determination regarding a reversed portion of a trial court's judgment constitutes the "law of the case" and serves as the foundation for any further action.

judicata effect will attach to that part which was reversed until a final judgment with respect to those issues has been rendered by the trial court.

11. The doctrine of the law of the case is akin to res judicata but is more limited in its application. It relates solely to questions of law and is confined in its operation to subsequent proceedings in the same case. The doctrine is that a determination of a question of law made by an appellate court in the course of an action becomes "the law of the case" and may not be disputed by a reopening of the question at a later stage of the litigation. It normally commands adherence but is not subject to the inflexibility of res judicata.

12. Under the rule of stare decisis, where a principle has been passed upon by the court of last resort, it is the duty of all inferior tribunals to adhere to the decision, without regard to their views as to its propriety, until the decision has been reversed or overruled by the court of last resort or altered by legislative enactment.

13. A statement of a superior court is binding on inferior tribunals, even though technically dictum, where it was passed upon by the court with as great care and deliberation as if it had been necessary to decide it, was closely connected with the question upon which the case was decided, and the opinion was expressed with a view to settling a question that would in all probability have to be decided before the litigation was ended.

14. Though we have sanctioned the defensive use of collateral estoppel by a non-party, we have not approved the application of the doctrine of merger and bar by a non-party to a prior action against a party thereto.

15. Territory v. Gay, 31 Haw. 376 (1930), aff'd 52 F.2d 356 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 284 U.S. 677, 52 S.Ct. 131, 76 L.Ed. 572 (1931), was not an action to enjoin the wrongful diversion of water out of the Manuahi-Koula-Hanapepe watershed, thus, no claim preclusion will arise from that adjudication to prevent a state action to enjoin such extra-watershed transfers.

16. State judicial action may, of course, constitute state action violative of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution.

17. Due process in its "primary sense" presupposes that one claiming to be injured by violations of the law will be permitted an opportunity to present his case and be heard in its support.

18. If persons allegedly wronged by unconstitutional state action are wholly without an effective avenue of recourse, the availability of some forum would be required, notwithstanding any state court determinations on the applicable scope of any doctrine of preclusion.

19. The availability of a state rehearings process and United States Supreme Court review of constitutional violations allegedly created by a state supreme court decision provides aggrieved persons with an adequate opportunity to have their arguments considered and to prevail on the merits when justified.

20. Except as provided by statute, the jurisdiction of our circuit courts is strictly original and these courts are endowed with no statutory authority to review the decisions of our state supreme court.

21. In determining whether an original action in circuit court constitutes an impermissible appeal of a supreme court decision, the relevant inquiries are: 1) whether the issues upon which the second action is based actually arose in the preceding state court action; and 2) whether the second action is a proceeding to reverse or modify the previous judgment.

22. While unconstitutional judicial conduct may serve for relief from judgment under HRCP 60(b), a trial court has no jurisdiction under the rule to find that our state supreme court erred in determining issues presented to it.

23. McBryde, supra, precludes the bringing of any action in state court which would constitute an appeal of that case either by way of an original action or a motion for relief from judgment.

24. The preclusive effect of the McBryde appeal extends only so far as the issues decided in that case, thus, since we understand McBryde to be silent on the actual application of the rights delineated therein to existing diversions, an independent action by parties to that action to enjoin the cessation of particular diversions would not be precluded by that decision.

25. The concept of ownership is meaningless without some identification of the thing owned and the rights accompanying such ownership that are also defined and capable of being acted on.

26. Prior to McBryde, supra, the law governing surplus water was not what could be considered settled.

27. The sovereign's reservation of the ownership of surface waters at the time of the Mahele served to impose a public trust upon those waters, that is, the public interest in the waters of the kingdom was understood to necessitate a retention of authority and the imposition of a concomitant duty to maintain the purity and flow of our waters for future generations and to assure that the waters of our land are put to reasonable and beneficial uses.

Andrew S.O. Lee, Deputy Atty. Gen., for defendants-appellants George R. Ariyoshi, et al.

Alexander C. Marrack, Honolulu (Hoddick, Reinwald, O'Connor & Marrack, Honolulu, of counsel), for plaintiffs-appellees Selwyn A. Robinson, et al.

J. Russell Cades, Honolulu (Cades, Schutte, Fleming & Wright, Honolulu, of counsel), for defendant-appellee McBryde Sugar Co.

William F. Quinn, Honolulu (Goodsill, Anderson & Quinn, Honolulu, of counsel), for defendant-appellee Olokele Sugar Co.

Robert B. Bunn, Honolulu (Cades, Schutte, Fleming & Wright, Clinton I. Shiraishi, Shiraishi & Yamada, Honolulu, of counsel, with him on the brief), for defendants-appellees Ida Alborado, et al.

RICHARDSON, Chief Judge.

Six questions relating to the interpretation and effect of our decision in McBryde Sugar Co. v. Robinson, 54 Haw. 174, 504 P.2d 1330, aff'd on rehearing, 55 Haw. 260, 517 P.2d 26 (1973), appeal dismissed for want of jurisdiction and cert. denied, 417 U.S. 962, 94 S.Ct. 3164, 41 L.Ed.2d 1135 (1974) (hereinafter McBryde ), have been certified to us by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit under rule 20 of this court which permits us to answer state law questions determinative of a cause before the Supreme Court of the United States or any court of appeals of the United States.

The action before the court of appeals serving as the source of the questions involves an attempt by private landowners in the Hanapepe Valley to obtain federal court relief from our decision in McBryde delineating rights and interests in and to the waters of the Hanapepe River system. The federal district court sitting in Hawaii, for reasons discussed more fully below, agreed with the landowners that portions of the decision contravened due process. Robinson v. Ariyoshi, 441 F.Supp. 559 (Hawaii 1977). It therefore enjoined the enforcement of parts of the decision it found "untenable and void", id. at 586, and returned other portions to a state circuit court for further determination. The State of Hawaii, defendants in the action, then appealed to the Ninth Circuit whence these questions emanated.

The Course of Litigation

In 1959 McBryde Sugar Company filed a state court action seeking a determination of...