Ideally, a court ruling settles a legal battle, but the seething discord over burials protection on Kaua'i is far from over and may require legislation to clarify.

It involves property at Wainiha where a private residence is planned and where 30 Native Hawaiian burials are located. Following a recommendation by the Kaua'i-Ni'ihau Island Burial Council, in a process set up in law, the decision was made to leave the burials in place.

On Sept. 15, Fifth Circuit Court Judge Kathleen Watanabe ruled that the State Historic Preservation Division did not meet its obligation to do further consultation with the council and descendants of those buried on the site over treatment of the burials.

Watanabe ordered that consultation resume over the burial plan, which would involve the council, Native Hawaiian groups and others. That discussion, which will begin when the council next meets in October, is sure to be an explosive one: Many opponents to the project argue that once the burials are left in place, it's unacceptable to allow construction over them.

But the judge stopped short of halting construction.

"This court has a very small amount it can do with this case," Watanabe said during a Sept. 4 hearing. "The biggest problem is the law does not go far enough to protect these burials."

At the very least, there's a sharp disagreement over what the legal protection includes.

In the rules governing the "preservation in place" option, possible protection measures include fencing, buffers and site restoration, landscaping and provisions for access to the site by known descendants.

Although some people attending the burial council meeting interpreted the "preservation" finding to mean no construction on the site, that is not spelled out.

There was no apparent way the landowner, Joseph Brescia, who went through all the approval processes, could have known this would be the outcome and no reason he should be penalized for it. There is a fundraising campaign to buy out Brescia's interest in the land and preserve it; this may be the most practical solution for this case.

But it doesn't erase the fact that the parties involved in burials protection are unclear on how to proceed and what to expect.

The whole mess is reminiscent of past stumblings in government processes, such as the Superferry environmental dispute, in which government approvals were later countermanded by the courts.

Lawmakers granted an exemption to extricate the state from possible lawsuits. But then, as now, the better route is to fix the law rather than to continually waive it.

The state Department of Land and Natural Resources needs to have a meeting of the minds with Native Hawaiian advocacy groups to determine how the law and its administrative rules could be made more explicit.

With the development that's in the pipeline throughout the state, it's essential for those embroiled in these emotional discussions to have the clearest understanding of the legal landscape.