Case Explained: BOWA ESTATES LIMITED, ET AL. V. ASSOCIATION OF APARTMENT OWNERS OF WAILEA POINT VILLAGE, ET AL.

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Filed: 2026-07-15

Docket: 1:23-cv-00582-MWJS-RT

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the condominium association regarding the validity of a lease-term amendment. The court held that under Hawaii contract law, the phrase “fundamental purposes of or restrictions on the use of” in Section 10 of the condominium declaration requires unanimous consent for amendments affecting either category, but the modifier “fundamental” applies only to “purposes” and not to “restrictions on the use.” Applying plain language interpretation principles and the nearest-reasonable-referent canon, the court determined that the lack of parallel syntactic structure between “purposes of” and “restrictions on the use of,” combined with the disjunctive “or,” prevented the modifier from extending to the second phrase. Consequently, because the amendment increasing the minimum lease term from 30 days to 365 days altered a specific restriction on unit use addressed elsewhere in the declaration, it required unanimous owner approval rather than the 67 percent majority vote that was obtained. The practical consequence is that the amendment is invalid and unenforceable, remanding the case for further proceedings consistent with this determination.

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