Latest In Big Island Takings And Vested Rights Challenge To LUC Reclassification

by Robert Thomas, InverseCondemnation.com

Here's the latest in a case we've been following. In Bridge Aina Lea, LLC v. State of Hawaii Land Use Comm'n, the plaintiff filed its complaint in state circuit court alleging that the LUC violated state and federal law (due process, takings, vested rights, and more) when it reclassified "urban" land on the Big Island to "agriculture."

The defendants then removed the case to federal court, and have now filed a motion to dismiss that contains a host of defenses: immunity, the unavailability of prospective injunctive relief, whether certain defendants are "persons" under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, abstention on the federal takings claim, the lack of a state damage remedy for deprivation of constitutional rights, and zoning estoppel, among others.

Just the thing to give you flashbacks to your Federal Courts class.

Update: here's the errata filed just after the motion to dismiss.

Motion to Dismiss, Bridge at Aina Lea, LLC v. State of Hawaii Land Use Comm'n, No. 11-00414 ACK (July 27, 2...