My Civil Beat column this week reports on a case of a California man who has made offers on two high-priced properties in Hawaii over the past decade, both times shopping online and bidding sight unseen, apparently lost out both to buyers who made better offers or sought fewer special conditions, and then both times claimed he was the victim of discrimination and tried to collect damages from the sellers (“Hawaii Monitor: Seller, Beware!“).

The column focuses primarily on a current case, in which the unsuccessful buyer has filed a complaint with the Hawaii Civil Rights Commission. A similar complaint involving the same transaction, filed in 2010, was dismissed by the commission for lack of evidence of discrimination.

A decade ago, under quite similar circumstances, the same would-be buyer sued the brokers marketing the Peninsula at Hawaii Kai, which was then a new development by Stanford Carr. Although the case raised “breach of contract” and similar allegations, the man said this week that he believes the sales process was rigged to favor a local buyer. However, his claim was thrown out of court after evidence showed standard industry criteria were applied when selecting the best offer.

But here’s the hidden catch. This was one of those cases where the insurance company stepped in and agreed to a “nuisance” settlement in order to avoid a lengthy appeal, even though in all likelihood the defendants would prevail in court. I found realtors very reluctant to discuss cases like this, and it’s hard to gauge how many such complaints lead to out-of-court, nuisance payoffs. Businesses of all kinds are pretty familiar with these situations. It would be interesting to find out whether they can be quantified.

If you’re unable to access the column at CivilBeat.com, you can read it here.