Fed. Dist Court of HI Dismisses Due Process, Equal Protection and Discrimination Claims Arising from a Stop Work Order on a Waterfront Property

This post was authored by Matthew Loescher, Esq.

Plaintiff Yoshikawa, resided in the City and County of Honolulu and owned waterfront real property located in Kaneohe. Plaintiff hired James Schmit to design plans and obtain a building permit so that Plaintiff could repair and renovate his property in accordance with rules and regulations pertaining to construction within the shoreline setback area. Schmit submitted a building permit application for an “Addition and Alteration to existing Single Family Dwelling,” which required approval from various sources, including the Building and Zoning divisions within the City’s Department of Planning and Permitting (“DPP”). After the permit was approved, building inspector Troy K. Seguirant issued a Notice of Violation and Stop Work Order on the project. the City’s Board of Building Appeals (“BBA”) then denied Yoshikawa’s appeal, which led to the filing of this case.

Plaintiff first alleged that Seguirant violated 42 U.S.C. § 1981, by interfering with his contractual relationships with his architect and general contractor. Plaintiff Yoshikawa and Plaintiff’s architect, general contractor and his employees alike were not born and raised in Hawaii. This precluded Plaintiff from pleading a Section 1981 claim because a class of people that consisted of “anyone not born and raised in Hawai‘I” was not a protected class under Section 1981 or the McDonnell Douglas framework. Plaintiff’s equal protection claim similarly failed due to his failure to provide any factual allegations showing that Seguirant applied the law in a discriminatory manner or applied different burdens to different classes of people, as required in a class-based equal protection claim.

Plaintiff next contended that Seguirant and the City were each liable under Section 1983 for violating Plaintiff’s procedural due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The court rejected this claim. Finding it unclear how Plaintiff could assert that the City did not afford him process with respect to the deprivation at issue, when his architect—represented by counsel—participated in a contested case hearing before the BBA, and the BBA Order was appealable. Moreover, the central premise of Plaintiff’s equitable estoppel claim was that Plaintiff was entitled to proceed with construction of the Project in accordance a letter his received from a County official. Here, the BBA considered and rejected this argument and Plaintiff did not appeal the BBA Order. As such, the court held it lacked jurisdiction over this claim.

Next, Plaintiff argued that Seguirant violated his substantive due process rights by “depriving Plaintiff of his vested rights under the Amended Building Permit, and the use or enjoyment of his property for two years.” The record reflected that Plaintiff himself alleged that Talboys and/or Schmit “violated applicable code and regulations of DPP” and “caused the scope of the Project to exceed the scope of the permits.” At the motions hearing, Plaintiff’s counsel explained that the claims against Schmit and Talboys were alternative theories of liability in the event that the Court rejected Plaintiff’s principal claim that he was entitled to proceed with the Project. Nevertheless, as Plaintiff conceded that it was at least possible that the Project violated municipal law, Plaintiff could not plausibly claim that Seguirant’s actions – enforcing the provisions that Schmit and/or Talboys may violated – were wholly divorced from a governmental interest.

Yoshikawa v City and County of Honolulu, 2021 WL 54363 (D. HI 1/6/2021)