## Facts

- Private landowners on Kauai (successors to Gay and Robinson) historically diverted and used irrigation water within the Hanapēpē watershed through dams, flumes, and ditches built to support agriculture in drier areas.
- Territorial-era litigation confirmed the landowners’ title to certain lands and associated rights to divert substantial volumes of irrigation water, and subsequent decisions long recognized broad private control and diversion rights.
- In 1973, the Hawaii Supreme Court issued a decree in related litigation that changed the governing state-law approach to surface water in a way adverse to the landowners’ previously recognized irrigation rights.
- The landowners sued state officials in federal court under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that enforcing the new state-law decree would divest vested property rights without just compensation, violating the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
- The federal district court enjoined the governor and other state officials from enforcing the state-court decree against the landowners’ asserted vested rights unless the state proceeded through constitutionally required procedures (including condemnation with just compensation).
- State officials appealed the injunction to the Ninth Circuit.

## Issues

1. Whether federal jurisdiction over a § 1983 action was barred by the Rooker doctrine or preclusion principles because the alleged injury followed a state supreme court decree.
2. Whether prospective state enforcement of a new judicially announced water-rights rule that extinguishes long-recognized irrigation rights constitutes an unconstitutional taking absent just compensation.
3. Whether injunctive relief against state officials was an available remedy to prevent enforcement that would divest vested property rights without compensation.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s exercise of jurisdiction and the injunction against state officials.
- The court held the action was not an impermissible federal appeal of a state judgment because it targeted prospective enforcement conduct by executive officials and asserted an independent federal constitutional claim.
- The court accepted that the landowners alleged vested property rights in irrigation water recognized under prior territorial and state decisions and supported by long-term reliance and investment.
- The court concluded that implementing the new rule to eliminate those vested rights without compensation would violate the Takings Clause as applied through the Fourteenth Amendment.
- The injunction was upheld to require the state to use condemnation (or otherwise provide just compensation) if it sought to reallocate or appropriate the vested rights.

## Legal Principles

- A federal court may hear a § 1983 claim seeking to restrain prospective enforcement by state officials even when the dispute follows a state-court decree, so long as the claim is an independent federal constitutional challenge rather than direct review of the state judgment.
- Long-recognized and relied-upon water diversion and use interests can constitute “property” protected by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
- A state may not eliminate vested property rights through a retroactive change in state property doctrine without paying just compensation; channeling the change through the judiciary does not avoid takings limits.
- Injunctive relief may be used to prevent state officials from enforcing a regime that would result in an unconstitutional taking, while leaving the state free to proceed through condemnation and compensation.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit held that the landowners’ § 1983 challenge to prospective enforcement was within federal jurisdiction and affirmed an injunction preventing state officials from enforcing a state-court water-rights change in a manner that would divest vested irrigation rights without condemnation and just compensation.


Robinson v. Ariyoshi, 753 F.2d 1468 (9th Cir. 1985)