United States v. Haleakala Ranch Co.

3 D. Haw. 299
CourtDistrict Court, D. Hawaii
DecidedOctober 26, 1908
StatusPublished

This text of 3 D. Haw. 299 (United States v. Haleakala Ranch Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Hawaii primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Haleakala Ranch Co., 3 D. Haw. 299 (D. Haw. 1908).

Opinion

Dole, J.

Tbe defendant, a corporation organized under and by virtue of tbe laws of tbe Kingdom of Hawaii on Sep[300]*300tember 1, 1888, is charged in the first count of the information with making a “money contribution in connection with an election to a political office, to-wit, to an election for the office of Delegate from the Territory of Hawaii to the Sixty-first Congress of the United States of America, contrary to the form of the statute of the United States in such case made and provided, to-wit, an act of the Congress of the United States of America, approved January 26, A. D. 1907 (34 Stat. L., part 1, p. 864).” The statute forbids “any national bank or any corporation organized by authority of any laws of Congress” from making a “money contribution in connection with any election to any political office.”

It is contended by the United States that upon annexation all corporations owing their existence to either the Hawaiian Kingdom or the Republic of Hawaii “no longer had any standing save as the same might have been preserved by that provision of the resolution of annexation which reads as follows: ‘ The municipal legislation of the Hawaiian Islands, not enacted for the fulfilment of the. treaties so extinguished, and not inconsistent with this joint resolution nor contrary to the Constitution of the United States nor to any existing treaty of the United States, shall remain in force until the Congress of the United States shall otherwise determine’.” And it further contends that the defendant “was in fact continued in existence or, if the term may be used, recreated, by virtue of the resolution of annexation.”

The laws of the Republic of Hawaii were more definitely dealt with by the organic act creating the government of the Territory of Hawaii (act of April 30, 1900: 31 Stat. L. 142). This provides in section 6 “that the laws of Hawaii not inconsistent with the Constitution or the laws of the United States or the provisions of this act, shall continue in force subject to repeal or amendment by the legislature of Hawaii or the Congress of the United States,” and then proceeds specifically to repeal a number of the Hawaiian laws but does not repeal the Hawaiian law relating to corporations.

[301]*301The Hawaiian Islands became a part of the United States, not by conquest or by any use of force by the greater power, but as a result of negotiations between the two countries, the -initiation of such negotiations having come from the Republic of Hawaii. In the light of these facts, the expression of the resolution of annexation (July 7, 1898: 30 Stat. L. 750) that the municipal legislation of the Hawaiian Islands should “remain in force” until the Congress of the United States should otherwise determine, and that of the organic act, that the laws of Hawaii not inconsistent with the Constitution or laws of the United States or the provisions of the organic act should “continue in force,” subject to repeal or amendment by the- legislature of Hawaii or the Congress of the United States, was significant of the complete recognition by the United States of the validity of such laws under the new status and of the agreement for their continuance until subject to further legislation relating to them either by Congress or by the Hawaiian legislature.

Annexation was a transfer of sovereignty by friendly compact and for due consideration. Vested rights not involved in the transfer cannot be affected by such a transaction, nor can it be construed so as to impair the obligation of contracts, — the contracts related to this case being the charter of the defendant granted by the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom and continued in force by the proclamation of 1893 creating the Provisional Government of the Lláwaiian Islands, and by the Constitution of the Republic of Hawaii, which charter represents the contract between government and the incorporators, and the contract between the stockholders.

The extinction of corporations, as suggested by counsel for the prosecution, raises the difficult question of the revival of such extinguished corporations, — assuming them to have been so extinguished. The revival of a corporation which has been dissolved is as fully an exercise of power as the original incorporation. If, therefore, the then existing Hawaiian corporations lost their corporate powers by reason of the annexation [302]*302proceedings, it does not appear that there have been any authoritative proceedings since that time to revive them. The rule pf contemporaneous construction, then, would apply against the theory of extinction.

The situation may be compared'with the sale of real estate subjecting the granted property to leasehold covenants or covenants for easements of right of way, water or drainage, in favor of third parties. In such a case the transfer of ownership does not destroy such covenants, even momentarily. The analogy is still stronger in the case of a devise of real estate subject to such covenants, in that the devise comes into operation at the moment the proprietor ceases to exist; the fact of the death of the devisor causes no extinction of the covenants. I am convinced that there was no break in the authority of the Hawaiian corporation laws and no cessation of the status of the corporations which had been created by virtue of them; and the suggestion of counsel for the prosecution, that all corporations which had been organized under the laws of either the Kingdom or the Republic, “lost their corporate powers by reason of the creator having ceased to exist, and regained such powers only by virtue of the resolution of annexation or the organic act,” is to my mind inconsistent with the facts. If I am right in this view, it cannot be said that this defendant was organized by authority of a law of Congress.

Counsel on both sides asked the court that if “it believes there is a distinction between cases of corporations organized before and those organized since the date of the organic act,” it would express such belief in its opinion.

It is certain that the above considerations do not apply to corporations organized under the territorial government, and that a different relation to the authority of Congress exists in relation to such corporations,- — the question in such a case being merely, is a corporation that is chartered by the territorial government “organized by authority of any laws of Congress ?”

The cases of Adams Express Co. v. Denver & Rio Grande R. Co., 16 Fed. Rep. 712, and the Pacific Railroad Removal [303]*303Cases, 115 U. S. 2, are cited to support the negative of this •question; but although the first of these cases decided that Wells Eargo & Company, a corporation organized under an act of the ■Colorado legislature, — Colorado being then a Territory, was not a federal corporation, yet the gist of the decisions in these cases was that, under the act of Congress of March 3, 1875 (18 Stat. L., chap. 137, p.

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Bluebook (online)
3 D. Haw. 299, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-haleakala-ranch-co-hid-1908.