# In Re the Contested Case Hearing on Water Use, Well Construction, & Pump Installation Permit Applications, Filed by Wai'ola O Moloka'i, Inc.

> Hawaii Supreme Court · January 29, 2004 · 103 Haw. 401

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9796138

## Case

- **Full name:** In the Matter of the Contested Case Hearing on Water Use, Well Construction, and Pump Installation Permit Applications, Filed by WAI'OLA O MOLOKA'I, INC. and Moloka‘i Ranch, Limited
- **Court:** Hawaii Supreme Court
- **Decided:** January 29, 2004
- **Citations:** 103 Haw. 401; 83 P.3d 664
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Concurrence by Acoba
- **Judges:** Moon, Levinson, Nakayama, McKenna, Duffy, Acoba
- **Cited by:** 42 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9796138

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that the Commission on Water Resource Management “failed to discharge its public trust duty to protect native Hawaiians’ traditional and customary gathering rights, as guaranteed by . . . [A]rticle XII, section 7 of the Hawaiʻi Constitution”
- holding that the agency failed to discharge its public trust obligations by granting water use permits without rendering findings of facts and conclusions of law regarding the applicant’s burden under the public-trust balancing framework
- holding that the Commission on Water Resource Management “failed to discharge (continued . . .
- explaining that any presumption of validity, given to an agency’s decision, “presupposes that the agency has grounded its decision in reasonably clear” findings of fact and conclusions of law
- stating that courts do not defer to agency interpretations that are “plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the underlying legislative purpose”

## Opinion text

ACOBA, J.,
concurring separately.
I concur in-the result.

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9796138. Public record. Not legal advice.