STAND. COM. REP. NO. 197

 

Honolulu, Hawaii

                  

 

RE:    S.B. No. 1495

 

 

 

Honorable Ronald D. Kouchi

President of the Senate

Thirtieth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2019

State of Hawaii

 

Sir:

 

     Your Committee on Hawaiian Affairs, to which was referred S.B. No. 1495 entitled:

 

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO ACTIONS FOR QUIET TITLE,"

 

begs leave to report as follows:

 

     The purpose and intent of this measure is to establish quiet title action procedures for kuleana land by:

 

     (1)  Allowing court-ordered mandatory mediation at the request of the defendant and with costs allocated to the plaintiff; and

 

     (2)  At the request of defendants in separate actions, consolidating separate quiet title actions located within the same court circuit and commenced by the same plaintiff.

 

     Your Committee received testimony in support of this measure from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs; We Are One, Inc.; Ka Lāhui Hawaii Political Action Committee; Na Kupuna Moku O Keawe; Hoomanapono Political Action Committee; Democratic Party of Hawaii, Hawaiian Affairs Caucus; and eighty-eight individuals.

 

     Your Committee finds kuleana land parcels, many of which have been passed down from original awardees through multiple generations of heirs, represent a vital legal recognition of native Hawaiian families' traditional tenure of ancestral lands.  Although quiet title actions under the Kingdom of Hawaii government were a beneficial legal tool for native Hawaiian kuleana awardees to resist adverse possession claims made by large agricultural landowners, the current framework of quiet title action leaves kuleana owners vulnerable to dispossession, including through the use of complex and cost-prohibitive legal processes that effectively foreclose quiet title defendants from challenging quiet title actions and adverse possession claims.  Your Committee finds this measure will create a more equitable and timely process to resolve disputes and hardships stemming from quiet title actions filed against owners of kuleana lands.

 

     Your Committee notes concerns raised by the Democratic Party of Hawaii, Hawaiian Affairs Caucus and Ka Lāhui Hawaii Political Action Committee that this measure could be strengthened further by reinforcing kuleana land owners' special status under Kingdom of Hawaii law and the state constitution, preserving defendants' access to or through the land for native Hawaiian cultural and traditional practices in cases where the plaintiff prevails, and limiting actions to quiet title to kuleana land to plaintiffs who own at least a fifty percent interest in the land.

 

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Hawaiian Affairs that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1495 and recommends that it pass Second Reading and be referred to your Committee on Judiciary.

 

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Hawaiian Affairs,

 

 

 

________________________________

MAILE S.L. SHIMABUKURO, Chair