Ocean Resort Villas v. County of Maui — The Documents

In this case, two sizeable timeshare projects sued the County of Maui in circuit court on Maui, seeking invalidation of the “Time Share” real property tax classification in the Maui ordinances.  The County retaliated by back assessing the taxpayers for more than $10 million, and giving them only 30 days to come up with the money!  The circuit court essentially threw the book at the counties for doing that, and then invalidated the classification for good measure.

This case has been the subject for our series, “The County Strikes Back!”  Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

The Foundation’s proposed amicus brief adopts the position of neither party.  The three main issues presented are (1) whether the case is in the right court, (2) whether the retaliatory back assessment was legal, and (3) whether the Time Share classification is invalid.

Because of technical issues, the Notice of Appeal doesn’t include the lower court opinions.  We have extracted them from the Record on Appeal.  We have filed our motion before Maui County filed its opening brief.  Only some of the documents in the appellate case file are included here.

The Supreme Court’s decision, filed on June 19, 2020, concluded that the Circuit Court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case in the first instance because the case was a tax appeal and should have gone to the Board of Review and/or the Tax Appeal Court.  The court also held that the claim for damages for deprivation of constitutional rights depended on the other claims in the case and could not stand on its own as a basis for jurisdiction.

Documents in the Intermediate Court of Appeals

• Circuit Court decisions being appealed from
  • Decision on Retroactive Assessments (Aug. 9, 2017)
  • Decision on Illegality (Mar. 23, 2018)
• Notice of Appeal (Jul. 20, 2018)
• Tax Foundation’s Motion for Leave to File Amicus Brief (Dec. 3, 2018)
• County of Maui’s Response to TFH Motion (Dec. 7, 2018)
• Appellees’ Response to TFH Motion (Dec. 10, 2018)
• County of Maui’s Amended Opening Brief (Dec. 25, 2018)
• ORDER Granting in Part TFH’s Motion (Jan. 16, 2019)
• Tax Foundation’s Amicus Brief (Jan. 16, 2019)
• Plaintiffs’ Response to TFH Brief (Feb. 15, 2019)
• County’s Response to TFH Brief (Feb. 15, 2019)

Documents in the Supreme Court of Hawaii

• Plaintiffs/Appellees’ Application for Transfer to  Supreme Court (Jan. 28, 2019)
• County’s Response to Application for Transfer (Feb. 4, 2019)
• ORDER Granting Application for Transfer (Feb. 20, 2019)
• Plaintiffs’ Answering Brief (Apr. 5, 2019)

[On May 22, 2019, the case was sent to the Appellate Mediation Program.  No further activity in the court system is expected for a year or so.]

• Appellate Mediation Report (Nov. 13, 2019)
• ORDER Requiring Status Report (Dec. 23, 2019)
• Court Ordered Status Report (Jan. 2, 2020)
• Declaration re Settlement Agreement (Jan. 2, 2020)
• Stipulation for Partial Dismissal – not approved (Jan. 3, 2020)
• Motion for Partial Dismissal (Jan. 9, 2020)
• ORDER Denying Partial Dismissal and Dissent (Mar. 11, 2020)
• ORDER Disapproving Stipulation and Dissent (Mar. 11, 2020)
• ORDER re Reply Brief (Mar. 11, 2020)
• OPINION OF THE COURT (June 19, 2020)
• CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION (June 19, 2020)