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takyon writes:

Mark Zuckerberg has had a change of heart concerning lawsuits filed to force native Hawaiians to sell him land within his property:

The Facebook CEO now says he is "reconsidering" a set of lawsuits that he recently filed to compel hundreds of Hawaiians to sell him small plots of land they own that lie within his 700-acre beachfront property on the island of Kauai.

The billionaire's potential about-face came after widespread publicity last week about the suits, which target a dozen plots covering slightly more than 8 acres of land strewn throughout the acreage that Zuckerberg bought for $100 million two years ago. Currently, owners of the lots, which have been in their families for generations, have the rights to travel across Zuckerberg's property. But many of the owners likely are unaware of their ownership interest in the plots.

Last week, Zuckerberg said, "For most of these folks, they will now receive money for something they never even knew they had. No one will be forced off the land." But on Tuesday night, Zuckerberg said, "Based on feedback from the local community, we are reconsidering the quiet title process and discussing how to move forward."

The cause of Zuckerberg's woes is an 1850 law (text) that allows descendants to inherit increasingly fractional amounts of land:

A Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law primer on quiet title and partition law titled "E 'Onipaa i ke Kulaiwi" said using the law to compel land sales has reduced Native Hawaiian landownership: "Partition by sale in particular is highly problematic for the Native Hawaiian community because it severs a family's connection to ancestral land." Zuckerberg, through several companies he controls, filed the lawsuits against a few hundred people — many living and some dead — who inherited or once owned interests in what are known as kuleana lands where ownership is often largely undocumented.

Kuleana lands refers to real estate initially acquired by Hawaii citizens through the Kuleana Act of 1850, which followed the Great Mahele, in which the Hawaiian kingdom began allowing private ownership of land. Often, kuleana lands automatically passed to heirs of the first owner in absence of a will or deed, and then down through subsequent generations of [descendants] who in some cases now own just fractions of an interest in the property without documentation. Hawaii's quiet title law can be used to establish legal title to such land. However, quieting these "noisy" real estate titles is expensive and therefore doesn't happen often unless someone with the financial resources and interest in the property becomes engaged.

Original Submission