Samuel Damon v. Territory of Hawaii
| Decision Date | 25 April 1904 |
| Docket Number | No. 207,207 |
| Citation | 24 S.Ct. 617,48 L.Ed. 916,194 U.S. 154 |
| Parties | SAMUEL M. DAMON, Plff. in Err. , v. TERRITORY OF HAWAII |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Francis M. Hatch, Reuben D. Silliman, and J. J. Darlington for plaintiff in error.
Mr. Lorrin Andrews for defendant in error.
[Argument of Counsel from pages 154-157 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:
This is an action at law, somewhat like a bill to quiet title, to establish the plaintiff's right to a several fishery of a peculiar sort, between the coral reef and the ahupuaa of Moanalua on the main land of the island of Oahu. The organic act of the territory of Hawaii repealed all laws of the Republic of Hawaii which conferred exclusive fishing rights, subject, however, to vested rights, and it required actions to be started within two years by those who claimed such rights. Act of April 30, 1900, chap. 339, §§ 95, 96 (31 Stat. at L. 141, 160). At the trial the presiding judge directed a verdict for the defendant. Exceptions were taken but were overruled by the supreme court of the territory, and the case comes here by writ of error.
The right claimed is a right within certain metes and bounds to set apart one species of fish to the owner's sole use, or, alternatively, to put a taboo on all fishing within the limits for certain months, and to receive from all fishermen one third of the fish taken upon the fishing grounds. A right of this sort is somewhat different from those familiar to the common law, but it seems to be well known to Hawaii, and, if it is established, there is no more theoretical difficulty in regarding it as property and a vested right than there is regarding any ordinary easement or profit a prendre as such. The plaintiff's claim is not to be approached as if it were something anomalous or monstrous, difficult to conceive and more difficult to admit. Moreover, however, anomalous it is, if it is sanctioned by legislation, if the statutes have erected it into a property right, property it will be, and there is nothing for the courts to do except to recognize it as a right. Wedding v. Meyler, 192 U. S. 573, 583, ante, p. 322, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 322.
The property formerly belonged to Kamehameha IV., from whom it passed to his brother, Lot Kamehameha, and from him by mesne conveyances to the plaintiff. The title of the latter to the ahupuaa is not disputed. He claims the fishery also under a series of statutes and a royal grant. The history is as follows: In 1839 Kamehameha III. took the fishing grounds from Hawaii to Kauai and redistributed them,—those named without the coral reef, and the ocean beyond, to the people; those 'from the coral reef to the seabeach for the landlords and for the tenants of their several lands, but not for others.' The landlord referred to seems to have been the konohiki, or overlord, of an ahupuaa, or large tract like that owned by the plaintiff. It is not necessary to speculate as to what the effect of this act of the king would have been standing alone, he then having absolute power. It had, at least, the effect of inaugurating a system, de facto. But in 1846, the monarchy then being constitutional, an act was passed, article 5 of which was entitled 'Of the Public and Private Rights of Piscary.' By the 1st section of this article it was provided again that the same fishing grounds outside the reef should be free to the people, etc.; and then by the second it was enacted that the fishing grounds from the reefs to the beach, or, where there are no reefs, for one mile seaward, 'shall in law be considered the private property of the landlords whose lands, by ancient regulation, belong to the same; in the possession of which private fisheries the said landholders shall not be molested except' etc.
By § 3 'the landholders shall be considered in law to hold said private fisheries for the equal use of themselves and of the tenants on their respective lands; and the tenants shall be at liberty to use the fisheries of their landlords subject to the restrictions in this article imposed.' Then follows a statement of the rights of the landlord as they have been summed up above, and a provision that the landlords...
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In re Faxon Bishop
...in the commutation,94 they contend that the patent constituted a grant of the fishery therein referred to under the authority of Damon v. Hawaii, 194 U. S. 154. The Territory, on the other hand, contends that the alleged grant of the fishery of Makalawena contained in the royal patent to Ak......
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