Justia Alaska Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The Dennis P. Hutchinson, Jr. Trust held two residential properties; Appellee Wells Fargo Bank administered the trust. The beneficiary's mother and guardian, Appellant Jean Schultz, learned that insurance premiums on the properties in trust had increased significantly. She discovered that the insurance had not been purchased through local insurance markets, but purchased through the bank. The trust attorney unsuccessfully tried to contact the bank to discuss the increase in premiums, and resorted to suing the bank to force it to disclose documents and other information regarding the trust's administration. The superior court granted the trust approximately half of what it asked for, and declared neither side as the prevailing party, so no one was awarded attorney's fees. The trust appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing the superior court misinterpreted the statutory authority belying its decision regarding the fees, and therefore abused its discretion. The Supreme Court agreed and reversed. View "Schultz v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A." on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case centered on the custody and child support arrangement between Ronny M. and Nanette H. with respect to their two minor children, Ronny Jr. and Lavar, both of whom were born in Florida. Ronny and Nanette dated for several years after the births of their children but broke up in 2002 following a significant history of domestic violence by Ronny against Nanette. In 2002 the Florida Department of Children and Families became involved and set up a case plan that significantly limited Ronny's visitation rights. Ronny complied with the case plan and eventually worked his way up to unsupervised visitation with the children, but in 2007 he stopped seeing or contacting them altogether. In 2009 Nanette married and moved to Alaska with the children without informing Ronny. In 2010 Nanette filed a complaint in which she sought sole legal and primary physical custody of the children. Nanette also requested child support. Ronny opposed, requesting that the parties share joint legal custody and that he be awarded primary physical custody. The superior court awarded primary physical custody to Nanette and a modified form of joint legal custody to Nanette and Ronny. The superior court also granted Ronny summer visitation rights, provided that he pay for the travel expenses, and ordered Ronny to pay child support. Ronny appealed. Upon review, the Supreme Court affirmed the superior court's child custody and support award, but reversed and remanded regarding the allocation of visitation expenses. The superior court was affirmed in all other respects. View "Ronny M. v. Nanette H." on Justia Law

A driver caused injury to the passenger of another car in a two-car accident. The passenger brought suit for damages, including her insurer's subrogated claim for medical expenses. The driver made an early offer of judgment, which the passenger did not accept. The driver's insurer then made a direct payment to the subrogated insurer, thereby removing that amount from the passenger's potential recovery. The driver then made a second offer of judgment, which the passenger did not accept. After trial both parties claimed prevailing party status; the driver sought attorney's fees. The superior court ruled that the first offer of judgment did not entitle the driver to fees, but the second offer did. Both parties appealed, arguing the superior court improperly considered the subrogation claim payment in its rulings. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the subrogation claim payment had to be taken into account when evaluating the first offer of judgment and affirmed the decision that the driver was not the prevailing party based on the first offer of judgment. But because the nature of the payment on the subrogation claim was not clear, the Court vacated the decision that the second offer of judgment entitled the driver to attorney fees and remanded the case for further proceedings on this issue. View "Dearlove v. Campbell" on Justia Law

In 2007, a shareholder of Calais Company, Inc., Deborah Kyzer Ivy, filed a complaint against Calais seeking involuntary corporate dissolution. In May 2009, Ivy and Calais reached a settlement agreement in which Calais agreed to purchase Ivy's shares at "fair value" as determined by a three-member panel of appraisers. The appraisers disagreed over the fair value of the company. Calais sought to enforce the Agreement in superior court, arguing the two majority appraisers had failed to comply with the appraisal procedure mandated by the Agreement and the Agreement's definition of "fair value." The superior court ultimately declined to rule on the issue, concluding that interpreting the term "fair value" was beyond its scope of authority under the terms of the Agreement. Consequently, the court ordered Calais to purchase Ivy's shares based on the majority appraisers' valuation. Calais appealed. Upon review of the matter, the Supreme Court reversed the superior court's final order and remanded for the court to remand to the appraisers with explicit instructions to calculate the "fair value" as defined by AS 10.06.630(a), as required by the Agreement. View "Calais Company, Inc. v. Kyzer Ivy" on Justia Law

Appellant purchased a home and fell behind on her mortgage payments. Despite the bank having agreed to postpone a foreclosure sale, it proceeded with the sale. After she threatened suit, the bank re-purchased the home and entered into settlement negotiations with appellant; the bank promised to re-convey the property to appellant so that she could proceed with a sale to a third party. The bank subsequently refused to perform and appellant sued both the bank and the bank's counsel for breach of the settlement agreement and fraudulent inducement. The superior court granted partial summary judgment to the woman on her breach of contract claim, finding that a binding settlement contract had been formed between appellant and the bank. Appellant then filed for bankruptcy. The bankruptcy trustee sold the property and the bankruptcy estate abandoned the present state court claim, placing the remaining balance from the sale of the property into the superior court registry. The superior court held a bench trial on the remaining fraud claim and on the parties' respective damages. At the conclusion of appellant's case, the court granted a directed verdict to the bank and the bank's counsel on the fraud claim. The superior court awarded the bank the unpaid loan balance as well as the fair rental value of the property for appellant's post-foreclosure occupancy of the property, and awarded the woman lost sale damages. The superior court also awarded the parties prejudgment interest, and later awarded the bank and its counsel attorney's fees. Appellant appealed the superior court's final judgment. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the bank abandoned its claim for rental damages at trial. Accordingly, the Court reversed the superior court's award of rental damages and any accompanying award of prejudgment interest. Because any right to recover fees for work performed on behalf of the dismissed defendants was waived, because it was error to award attorney's fees to the bank's counsel in responding to the bankruptcy petition, and because the superior court did not properly calculate attorney's fees under Alaska Civil Rule 68, the case was remanded to recalculate attorney's fees. The superior court was affirmed in all other respects. View "Taylor v. Wells Fargo Home Mortgage" on Justia Law

In May 2005, Petitioner Eugene Bottcher drove his vehicle off the road, hitting a boy and narrowly missing the boy's brother. Petitioner was intoxicated at the time; the boy who had been hit later died at the hospital from his injuries. After Petitioner hit the boy, he continued to drive, and when stopped by a passerby who had witnessed the accident, Petitioner tried to bribe him into not reporting the crime. Petitioner pled no contest to manslaughter, assault in the third degree, and failure to render assistance. The superior court sentenced him to a term of 23 years with 3 years suspended. The court also revoked Petitioner's driver's license for life. The court of appeals affirmed Petitioner's sentence and the lifetime revocation of his license. In his petition to the Supreme Court, Petitioner argued that the lifetime revocation was excessive. Upon review, the Court held that the trial court was not clearly mistaken in finding that Petitioner's case was an extreme one in which a lifetime revocation of his driver's license was required to protect the public. The Court therefore affirmed the decision of the court of appeals, which affirmed the superior court's lifetime revocation of Petitioner's driver's license. View "Bottcher v. Alaska" on Justia Law

A mother, appearing pro se, appealed a child support order. She claimed that the superior court erred in requiring her to pay child support to a father who shared physical custody and erred in refusing to allow a deduction for her direct support of two children from a prior relationship. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the support order was justified despite the shared custody, but the Court vacated the order and remanded the case back to the superior court for consideration of the deduction that Alaska Civil Rule 90.3 allowed for the mothers' direct support of her other children. View "O'Neal v. Campbell" on Justia Law

In two cases consolidated by the Supreme Court for this opinion, the Alaska Workers' Compensation Appeals Commission applied different standards to evaluate motions to stay future medical benefits, and the losing party in each case petitioned for review of the Commission's stay decision. The Court granted review to decide what standard applies to stays of future medical benefits. After review, the Court held that to stay future medical benefits, the employer must show the existence of the probability that the appeal will be decided adversely to the compensation recipient. View "Municipality of Anchorage v. Adamson" on Justia Law

The issue presented to the Supreme Court in this case involved a dispute over the disposition of a deceased Alaska attorney's interest in attorney's fees from his participation, through a joint venture, in the Exxon Valdez oil spill litigation. The attorney's sister, individually and on behalf of their mother's trust, asserted claims to the attorney's fees, and the attorney's estate opposed those claims. The parties settled the dispute by agreeing that the right to attorney's fees was an estate asset, and the settlement was approved by the Alaska superior court in the deceased attorney's probate proceedings. The attorney's fees were ultimately paid to the joint venture. Both the estate and the sister then sought the deceased attorney's interest in the joint venture's attorney's fees. The estate requested that the superior court enjoin the sister's claims as violations of the settlement agreement. Around this time, the joint venture deposited what it calculated as the deceased attorney's share of the joint venture's attorney's fees in a federal interpleader action in California. The superior court ruled that under the settlement agreement, as between the estate, the sister, and the mother's trust, the estate had the right to the deceased attorney's share of the attorney's fees held by the joint venture. The superior court therefore enjoined the sister from pursuing claims to the deceased attorney's share of the joint venture's attorney's fees. The superior court later modified the injunction to allow the sister's participation in the federal interpleader action. The sister appeals, arguing that the superior court exceeded its jurisdiction, issued its judgment without proper procedures, improperly interpreted the settlement agreement, prohibited her from pursuing contract claims against third parties, and entered a vague and ambiguous judgment. She also argues that the superior court's ruling was improperly expanded to allow her participation in the federal interpleader action. Because the Supreme Court concluded that the superior court acted within its jurisdiction, followed adequate procedures, did not prevent the sister from pursuing her individual contract claims against the joint venture, was not vague and ambiguous in its ruling, and did not expand the ruling's substance when modifying it, the Court affirmed the superior court's orders and judgment. View "Dimeff v. Estate of Robert Merle Cowan" on Justia Law

Appellant Clinton DesJarlais filed an application with the Office of the Lieutenant Governor seeking certification of an initiative that would generally prohibit abortion. The lieutenant governor, acting on the advice of the Department of Law, concluded that the initiative was unconstitutional and declined to certify it for circulation. Appellant filed suit against the State in superior court challenging the lieutenant governor's decision. The superior court granted summary judgment in favor of the State and appellant appealed. Because appellant's proposed initiative was clearly unconstitutional under controlling United States Supreme Court precedent, the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the superior court's grant of summary judgment. View "DesJarlais v. Alaska" on Justia Law