Showing posts with label circuit court. Show all posts
Showing posts with label circuit court. Show all posts

Saturday, October 10, 2015

Breaking: Judge invalidates Mauna Kea Thirty Meter Telescope emergency rule

photo courtesy Occupy Hilo Media
Mauna Kea Thirty Meter Telescope protest
Friday the Circuit Court of the Third Circuit, State of Hawaii, granted a partial motion for summary judgment that has the effect of invalidating the Mauna Kea emergency rule. Attorney General Chin and Chair Case released the following statement in response: “The State acknowledges the Court’s decision and will abide by it. We remind people traveling to Mauna Kea that even in light of today’s ruling existing laws and rules remain. It is always illegal to block the road. This includes standing in the road or placing obstructions in the road. These laws will continue to be enforced.” News release.

A Circuit Court judge has issued a ruling invalidating the state's Mauna Kea emergency rule aimed at curbing protests against the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope atop the Big Island mountain. Star-Advertiser.

A state judge has invalidated the emergency rules that made it illegal to be on Mauna Kea at night. The state Board of Land and Natural Resources approved the rules in July after activists opposed to the Thirty Meter Telescope blocked the road in an effort to stop its construction at the summit. Hawaii News Now.


State Circuit Court Judge Ronald Ibarra on Friday invalidated the Manua Kea emergency rules that the state Board of Land and Natural Resources approved in July to restrict access to the Big Island mountaintop in an attempt to allow construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope to proceed. Civil Beat.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Substitute teachers seek pay parity

More than five years after suing the state to get better pay for substitute teachers, attorneys will press their case for back pay, this time to the Intermediate Court of Appeals.

Three judges of the court -- Corrine Watanabe, Daniel Foley and Katherine Leonard -- will hear oral arguments at 9 a.m. Wednesday at the Supreme Court courtroom in Aliiolani Hale.

Paul Alston, an attorney representing the substitute teachers seeking more than $25 million in back pay, is fighting for retroactive raises after Circuit Judge Karen Ahn ruled in 2006 that the state Department of Education failed to comply with a 1996 law requiring it to pay substitutes the same daily rate as fulltime teachers.

The Legislature last year passed, and Gov. Linda Lingle signed, a bill that requires the DOE to give substitute teachers the same across-the-board raises that regular teachers, under collective bargaining, get each year. Now it’s just the back pay that’s at issue.

Among other things, the Circuit Court ruled that the state is liable to the substitute teachers for some but not all of the back pay sought by the teachers but doesn’t have to pay interest. The state is liable for contract claims, but is immune from direct claims under sovereign immunity, according to the court.

But the Circuit Court also refused to expand the rights to part-time employees, sparking an appeal. Attorneys for the substitute teachers also appealed rulings on statutes of limitations, tolling, sovereign immunity, pre-judgment interest, class certification and intervention. The state challenges the circuit court's orders allowing a third amended complaint, finding a waiver of sovereign immunity.