LIHU‘E — A contentious, two-year-old lawsuit between North Shore landowner Joseph Brescia and Native Hawaiian activist Ka‘iulani Edens and others recently ended with a $1 settlement. Fifth Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe approved the settlement Oct. 12. “So we won. It’s
LIHU‘E — A contentious, two-year-old lawsuit between North Shore landowner Joseph Brescia and Native Hawaiian activist Ka‘iulani Edens and others recently ended with a $1 settlement.
Fifth Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe approved the settlement Oct. 12.
“So we won. It’s done,” said Edens, who celebrated at a Lihu‘e bar with friends and some co-defendants in the trespassing, conspiracy and slander-of-title case involving Brescia’s Ha‘ena property where he built a home over and around the graves of at least 30 Native Hawaiians.
Edens, Andrew Cabebe, Dayne Gonsalves and Hale Mawae were the remaining defendants. Edens said she was not sure if each were on the hook for 25 cents, or $1.
Andrew Salenger of the Honolulu law firm Cades Schutte represented Brescia via telephone at the hearing. He offered no comment Tuesday when asked why he made the settlement offer.
Salenger has until Tuesday to prepare the written settlement order also dismissing nine other defendants, state court records show.
The case may be settled as far as state court is concerned, but Edens said it is not over for her.
“We’re going after them in federal court,” and in international court, she said, to protect the human remains that are sacred to Native Hawaiians.
“It’s just the kupuna. It’s our ancestors having their way,” she said of the state-court results. “And I’m blessed to be as protected as I am by them.”
There was a chance that if the case went to trial the defendants could have been found liable for upwards of $350,000 in damages due to construction delays the trespassing caused, according to previous statements from attorneys on both sides of the heated dispute.
The case — Joseph Brescia vs. Ka‘iulani Edens-Huff et al — involves Brescia’s Ha‘ena coastal property near YMCA Camp Naue, where Hawaiian remains, or iwi, were discovered.
Although Brescia redesigned plans for the home to avoid directly disturbing the remains, protesters had camped on the public beach near his property and, in at least one case, were arrested for trespassing on the property where Brescia has been trying to build a home for seven years.
Watanabe last year granted Brescia’s motions to name certain Kauaians in the trespassing suit by default, and to order them not to trespass or obstruct construction.
The motions also affirmed that many of those named in the case, including Edens, have no title to Brescia’s property, as they had argued.
Earlier motions to set aside the charges by attorneys for Edens, Mawae, Gonsalves and Cabebe were denied, meaning they could have been found liable at trial for some or all of the damages resulting in their roles in hindering construction at the site, said attorney Camille Kalama of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, representing another defendant, Jeff Chandler, after earlier proceedings in the case.
Defendants including Chandler and Puanani Rogers had filed third-party claims against various state agencies, claiming the state entities failed to follow historic burial procedures, Kalama said earlier.
Watanabe also had granted a motion by Brescia’s attorneys to make the defendants pay around $1,600 as the cost of Brescia’s attorneys’ transportation fees to come to Kaua‘i from O‘ahu for one scheduled court appearance, Kalama said.
• Paul C. Curtis, assistant editor and staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com.
