Background
In August 2023, Dawn Chang, Chairperson of the Commission on Water Resource Management (CWRM), issued a public statement announcing that M. Kaleo Manuel, the Commission’s First Deputy, was being redeployed to another division of the Department of Land and Natural Resources. Plaintiffs Kekai Keahi and Jennifer Kamaho’i Mather sued, alleging that the redeployment was a Commission personnel action that had to occur at a publicly noticed open meeting under Hawaii’s Sunshine Law (HRS chapter 92), and that any delegation of CWRM authority to the chairperson to take such action was an illegal unpromulgated rule under the Hawaii Administrative Procedure Act (HRS § 91-3).
The Complaint asserted three counts: violation of the Sunshine Law (Count I), a declaratory judgment that the Sunshine Law required an open meeting for such personnel actions (Count II), and a declaratory judgment that any delegation of CWRM authority to the chairperson without rulemaking was unlawful (Count III). Plaintiffs sought to void the redeployment and obtain injunctive and declaratory relief. Before the circuit court ruled, Defendants disclosed that Manuel had been returned to his First Deputy position as of October 9, 2023.
The Circuit Court of the First Circuit dismissed the entire Complaint as moot, reasoning that Manuel’s return eliminated any live controversy. The court declined to reach the merits of the Sunshine Law or rulemaking claims, denied Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, and deemed moot their motion to disqualify the deputy attorney general representing both Chang and CWRM. Plaintiffs appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Intermediate Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of Count I — the claim seeking to void the redeployment itself — because Manuel’s return to his position meant the circuit court could no longer grant effective relief on that request. The court noted that Plaintiffs effectively conceded this point and raised no mootness exception. Injunctive relief tied to the original redeployment was likewise moot for the same reason.
The court vacated the dismissal of Counts II and III, holding that live controversies remained over the interpretive and rulemaking questions regardless of Manuel’s reinstatement. Relying on the Hawaii Supreme Court’s decision in Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest, Inc. v. City & County of Honolulu, 144 Hawai’i 466, 445 P.3d 47 (2019), the court held that a genuine dispute over the correct interpretation of the Sunshine Law persists and that declaratory relief would prevent future harm to the public interest. Notably, Defendants themselves conceded that the circuit court should have ruled on the Sunshine Law declaratory claim.
As to Count III, the court rejected Defendants’ argument that CWRM lacked power to redeploy the First Deputy in the first place, finding that argument went to the merits rather than justiciability. The question of whether any chairperson delegation required formal rulemaking under HRS § 91-3 presented a live controversy warranting declaratory resolution. The case was remanded for further proceedings on Counts II and III; the appellate court did not address the merits of the summary judgment motion or the disqualification motion, as those had not been reached below.
Key Takeaways
- A claim seeking to void a specific government action becomes moot when that action has already been undone, even if no mootness exception applies — but related claims for forward-looking declaratory relief may survive.
- Under Civil Beat, a dispute over the correct interpretation of Hawaii’s Sunshine Law remains a live controversy so long as declaratory relief would prevent future public harm, even after the underlying incident is resolved.
- A government body’s contention that it lacked the power to take a contested action does not render moot a plaintiff’s claim that any such power could only be exercised through formal rulemaking under the Hawaii Administrative Procedure Act — that dispute goes to the merits, not justiciability.
- Hawaii’s Sunshine Law (HRS § 92-12(c)) expressly authorizes suit to determine the applicability of open-meeting requirements, giving courts jurisdiction over interpretive questions independent of the fate of the specific governmental act at issue.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces that Hawaii’s open-government statutes carry a built-in mechanism for obtaining definitive legal guidance even after a disputed action is reversed. Public agencies cannot avoid judicial scrutiny of their meeting and rulemaking practices simply by restoring the status quo ante before a court rules. The ruling will force the circuit court to decide on the merits whether personnel actions affecting CWRM’s First Deputy must occur in a publicly noticed open meeting and whether any chairperson authority to act unilaterally required a promulgated administrative rule — questions with direct consequences for how the state’s water resource governance operates.
For practitioners, the case illustrates the breadth of declaratory-relief jurisdiction under HRS § 92-12(c) and confirms that Civil Beat‘s “future harm to the public interest” standard applies beyond police-commission contexts to other state agencies subject to the Sunshine Law. Agencies facing Sunshine Law challenges should not assume that remedial voluntary action will terminate litigation over the underlying legal questions.