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The Maui News reports “Vacation rental group planning to appeal ruling” —

The Maui Vacation RentalAssociation will appeal U.S. District Judge Michael Seabright’sdismissal of its suit against Maui County to the 9th Circuit Court ofAppeals.

President David Dantes said Wednesday that the association had retaineda land use legal specialist, Robert Thomas of the Honolulu firm DamonKey Leong Kupchak Hastert, to handle the appeal.

He said that if the association wins its point and if the appeals courtin California should remand the case to the Honolulu court, theassociation might have Maui lawyer James Fosbinder handle the renewalof the suit.

Seabright dismissed most of the association’s claims but left open anoption of amending the complaint to allege civil rights violations.

Complete article here.  We posted about this case earlier here.

Continue Reading How Appealing

In a story dated December 30, 2007 in the New York Times Travel section, “Not in My Tropical Backyard,” Christoper Pala ties together several seemingly-unrelated threads: the Hawaii Superferry, development on Molokai, the Hokulia project on the Big Island, and expanded resort development on Oahu’s North Shore.  The only issue that seems to have been left out is the question of vacation rentals.  The unstated thesis seems to be that these events are spurred, in large part by “backlash” against tourists and related development, but that seems like only part of the vibe — and it may be more the “drawbridge protectionism” discussed in this post, and a perception that we’re nearing capacity and things just aren’t the way we remember them, than a specific anti-tourism or anti-outsider sentiment.  Continue Reading NY Times Catches a Recurring Vibe

The US District Court for the District of Hawaii dismissed most of the counts of the Maui Vacation Rental Association’s complaint against the County of Maui.  The court held that MVRA had the right to bring suit on behalf of its members, but dismissed — without leave to amend — the substantive and procedural due process claims, the breach of contract claim, the breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing claim, the equitable estoppel claim, and the illegal customs and policies claim.  The court also dismissed the equal protection claim, but allowed MVRA to amend its complaint. 

Here’s the court’s written order.  (The court’s summary order also mentioned a “First Amendment” claim, but no such claim is mentioned in the written order.)

County Fails to Process 90% of Applications

Vacation rentals outside of the “Hotel” zones are generally prohibited.  Those vacation rentals that were not operating…

Continue Reading Federal Court Dismisses Maui Vacation Rental Due Process Claims — Details

Hat tip to Supreme Court of Hawaii Blog for posting a Maui County press release announcing that on December 17, 2007, the US District Court for the District of Hawaii dismissed, for failure to state a claim, most of the allegations in the lawsuit by the Maui Vacation Rental Association.  The Maui News reports the story here, and Jesse Souki amalgamates his posts on the case at his Hawaii Land Use Law blog here. 

Failure to state a claim means either that a cause of action alleged by the plaintiff is not recognized, or, more commonly, that the plaintiff failed to properly plead an essential element of her legal claim.

Here’s the court’s summary order.  When the court issues its full written order, we’ll post it.Continue Reading Federal Court Dismisses Most of Maui Vacation Rental Lawsuit

Here are the latest filings in the federal lawsuit by the Maui Vacation Rental Association against the County of Maui.  The court asked for further briefing on the due process claim.   The plaintiff’s supplemental brief is here, and the County’s supplemental brief is here.

Previous posts on the case, including prior briefs and other pleadings, are here, here (video), here, and here.  The hearing on the County’s motion to dismiss is scheduled for December 19, 2007, at 9:00 a.m.Continue Reading Latest Briefs in Maui Vacation Rental Case

Check out this story from the Big Island’s West Hawaii Today (free registration may be required), “Other counties’ vacation rental laws could prove Big Island boon,” which starts off with this theorem: “[t]he Big Island could soon experience a windfall ofvisitor dollars that would have otherwise flowed into Maui, Kauai andHonolulu.”  In the article, the County of Hawaii’s Planning Director contrasts the Big Island’s treatment of short term (aka vacation) rentals with their treatment by the other three counties:

“We do enforce nonlicensed bed and breakfasts and rentals on agricultural land that are supposed to be farm dwellings,” said Hawaii County Planning Director Chris Yuen. “But we’re not engaged in any kind of crackdown on vacation rentals.”

There’s a reason the Big Island has escaped a controversy that could culminate next month with a federal lawsuit brought against Maui County by an association of renters: Hawaii…

Continue Reading Big Island: Bring Me Your Enthusiastic, Your Laden-With-Spending-Money Tourists, Yearning To Vacation Rent?

The Maui News reports that the County of Maui has filed a “response” (motion to dismiss) to the federal complaint brought by the Maui Vacation Rental Association against the County.  I posted about the case here.  The complaint summarizes the claims:

This is an action for injunctive and declaratory relief againstdefendants, and each of them, for their conduct in dealing with theowners of property being used as Transient Vacation Rentals in theCounty of Maui. Plaintiff alleges procedural and substantive dueprocess and equal protection violations, equitable estoppel, breach ofexpress and implied contract. Plaintiff also alleges municipalliability for failure to adequately train and supervise entityemployees, and for the maintenance of illegal customs and policies,both of which cause and allow constitutional violations of proceduraldue process, substantive due process, equal protection, and deprivationof honest government services, in violation of the Fourth, Fifth andFourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

Download the Complaint (800kb pdf)…

Continue Reading ▪ Government Response in Maui Vacation Rental Lawsuit