Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff
Author: Teresa Hair

Facts: the government owns 49% of Hawaii’s land.  47% is owned by only 72

Landowners the government found that this was inflating land prices and injuring public tranquility and welfare. Hawaii enacted statutes to condemn land being rented by large landowners to be sold to the renters through a pre-set procedure. Tenant living on a single-family residential lots with developed tracts of at least five acres in size are entitled to ask the HHA to condemn the property that they live on.  When 25 eligible tenants have done this, to tenants on half the lot, the HHA then hold public hearing to determine if the acquisition of the state will effectuate the public purposes of the Act.  If yes then they acquire it at a price either agreed upon by the condemnation trial or the negotiations between he lessors and lessees.  P’s land was to be condemned but negotiations between P and renters failed.  P then brought suit to have the statute declared unconstitutional.

Procedural History: District court held that the statute was partially constitutional and found that the Act’s goals were within the police power of the state and the means that they had chosen were not capricious or arbitrary.  Appellate court reversed.

Issue: Whether the 5^th Amendment prohibits states from taking land, with just compensation, from lessors and transferring it to lessees in order to reduce he concentration of ownerships in fee simple in a particular state.

Disposition: Reversed.

Rule(s): Where the exercise of the eminent domain power is rationally related to a conceivable public purpose, the Court has never held a compensated taking to be Proscribed by the public Use Clause

• It is not essential that the entire community, nor even any considerable portion, directly enjoy or participate in any improvement in order for it to constitute a public use.

Rationale:  Although the 5^th Amendment requires that lands taken by the State be taken

for “public use” that need not be interpreted to mean that the lands be taken in order to become public or State lands—it just means that the lands taken have to be taken to serve a legitimate state interest, and that they are rationally related to the Act’s objectives.  In this case, the lands were taken to increase the number of fee simple owners on Hawaii and correct the deficiencies in the land market in Hawaii.  Using a Rational Basis Review the court found that this act was not to simply convey the land to a specified private citizen, but rather to redistribute against the evils of the land market economy in Hawaii.