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Comment by FireBeyond | Hacker News Reader

> presumably the penalties for ignoring the courts are not severe enough

And this is the crux of it. Khosla is a multi billionaire. He could afford to pay a fine of $10,000 a day for the rest of his life.

At what point does this become contempt of court and lead to jail time? Unfortunately, in the US, the answer is likely "never, because he has too much net worth".

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>Khosla is a multi billionaire. He could afford to pay a fine of $10,000 a day for the rest of his life.

I believe that for a fine to be fair, it must be based on a percentage basis of disposable income[0].

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/03/finland...

The actual income of many extremely wealthy people is pretty small to non-existant compared to their net worth (not even counting assets they may have squirreled away in secret accounts, under their family member's names, or other creative accounting tricks).

Is it? Even 2% interest on a billion dollars is $20M/yr.

The purpose of sanctions in a situation like this is to compel the recipient of those sanctions to do the court's bidding. They should just ratchet the sanctions up until he does what has been ordered. If ten thousand dollars won't do it, make it a hundred. If that doesn't do it, multiply it by ten again. Eventually he'll either comply or no longer have any assets. Either way, the problem will be solved.

The law may only allow for fines up to a certain amount, no matter what a judge may want.

If not fines, then imprisonment for contempt of court is a remedy judges have at their disposal. I'm sure it would not take very long for Kholsa to get the point.

I would dream of finally seeing those SWAT teams used for the benefit of public good. Please, local police, videotape the scene and underline it with "Nobody is above the law", that will restore a bit of the credit that police has lost...

in my dream-world, these hypothetical fines would be levied on Khosla, collected by the court, and then donated to an account controlled by Surfrider Foundation.

then, in the near future, when the government eminent-domains the land, it would use that same money to make the payment ... not all of it, of course ... maybe 25% of it.

the remaining 75% could go toward building a parking lot and some bathroom facilities for the public.

Except that the probability of some aspect of your self business running afoul of a fine goes way up as your net worth goes up.

In this case it could simply be a sizable fraction of the value of the land. Apparently he values this strip of access at $30,000,000 so that's where the fine should be based. Hey, it's his measure of the value.

"The court seeks fines on the order of 1/365th of the terrain's value per day of continued denied access and will repossess the land in 1 year and 1 day if this ruling is not complied with"

Schadenfreude all around.

Yeah, repossessing the land seems the right course of action here for continued and blatant disregard for the law for so long. Monetary fines will do nothing against him, so take away something he can't buy (the right to occupy property). From the sound of it, he seems to have a "come at me bro" attitude towards the government and law enforcement, so this too would likely get delayed and fought indefinitely in courts. At the end when he loses, he'd probably just sell it somehow (for a profit) and move to a different place, then do the same thing.

A lot of money shouldn't mean a lot of potential to cause a lot of strife for a lot of people.

In this respect the income-dependent fines used in (amongst others) Sweden works better. The sentence will be for a certain number of 'dagsböter' (day-fines, [1]), the amount payable for which depends on the income of the payee. While a 'day fine' for someone who lives on the dole might be 150 kr (~$17), someone like Khosla might be looking at a day fine of more than 100.000 kr.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-fine

If any other citizen fails to pay fines, they get bench warrants for their arrest. They should issue bench warrants for these numbskulls.

I believe the point is that they are paying the fine, and just can keep on paying it.

Why not acquire the land between the beach and public access using eminent domain?

That is discussed in TFA.

Exactly. My gut tells me that the constitution guarantees beaches are public, but it does not guarantee the right to trespass on private property to exercise the beach right. But I have asked this question to understand if my understanding is correct.

Here's something for you to read up on. http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/row/landsurveys/Study_material/Cali...

Bottom line, property law derives a lot from English Common Law. It's possible for people to obtain rights that are not documented in any contract through customary use, or via common sense (e.g. If you sell someone a parcel of land completely surrounded by your land, you must grant them access to their property).

The down-side for both parties is that common law is up to even more interpretation than statutory law.

I believe that's the crux of Khosla's defense and why he is holding out. He seeks an eminent domain payment from the public -- $30 million -- to have access to Martins Beach via his property. It's unclear if this "principle" of requiring eminent domain for easements is consistent with the Coastal Act of 1976.

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Vinod-Khosla-wants-30-...

It's absurd that he's asking to be paid by the public here -- he knew public access was a requirement when he bought the property.

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