Mark Zuckerberg Drops Land Lawsuits Amid Criticism

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has decided to drop a series of lawsuits to buy plots of lands in Hawaii after public backlash.  Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan purchased the 700-acre waterfront estate on Kauai for $100 million in 2014.  They filed a series of eight lawsuits to buy out several hundred people’s stake of 13 plots on eight acres partitioned during the 1850s.

Many of the plots of land involved in the suits are “kuleana lands” which were granted to native Hawaiian tenant farmers between 1850 and 1855 and hold special rights including access, agricultural uses, gathering, water and fishing rights.

The suit was met with heavy criticism by some Hawaiians including hundreds who planned to protest outside Zuckerberg’s estate.  The suits would have forced hundreds of residents, including Native families, off their land in order to make his Hawaiian beachfront property as private as possible.

He initially defended the move, saying the purpose of the quiet title action was to identify property owners who were unaware of their stake in the land.  “Quiet title actions are the standard and prescribed process to identify all potential co-owners, determine ownership, and ensure that, if there are other co-owners, each receives appropriate value for their ownership share,” Zuckerberg’s lawyer, Keoni Schultz, said earlier in January.

Zuckerberg published a letter in the local Hawaiian newspaper The Garden Island saying it was clear the decision to file the suits over his ownership of the beachfront property on the island of Kauai was a mistake.  Zuckerberg said he initially misunderstood the quiet title process and hoped to work with the community to find a better solution.

“To find a better path forward, we are dropping our quiet title actions and will work together with the community on a new approach,” he said. “We understand that for native Hawaiians, kuleana are sacred and the quiet title process can be difficult. We want to make this right, talk with the community, and find a better approach.”

“Upon reflection, I regret that I did not take the time to fully understand the quiet title process and its history before we moved ahead. Now that I understand the issues better, it’s clear we made a mistake,” he said. “The right path is to sit down and discuss how to best move forward. We will continue to speak with community leaders that represent different groups, including native Hawaiians and environmentalists, to find the best path.”

In June 2016, Zuckerberg faced criticism for building a 6 foot stone wall enclosing his 700 acre property.  Many residents said it blocked breezes and obstructed ocean views.  Others argued that while it is his right to build on his property-it did not feel very neighborly.