Justia Alaska Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

Sabrina V. was the mother of Kaleb D., born 2005. By 2016 Kaleb was living in Wasilla with his father, now deceased. Sabrina had been living outside of Alaska for some years; the parents did not have a court order regarding Kaleb’s custody. Sabrina also had an older daughter, Lizzie, from a previous relationship. Lizzie was committed to the custody of the Office of Children’s Services (OCS) in September 2014 in an earlier child in need of aid (CINA) case. In February 2016, after a successful six-month home visit with Sabrina in Montana, OCS released Lizzie to Sabrina. The Alaska Office of Child Services filed an emergency petition for temporary custody of Kaleb, and to adjudicate him as a child in need of aid. The petition listed Kaleb’s father as the sole caregiver, and claimed to not have current contact information for Sabrina despite her having released Lizzie roughly two months earlier. Sabrina later testified her residence had not changed between her reunification with Lizzie and the initiation of CINA proceedings for Kaleb. At the emergency probable cause hearing an OCS caseworker testified that Kaleb had told OCS he had not seen Sabrina in roughly two years and that she “wasn’t a good mom.” The court granted OCS temporary custody. Sabrina appealed the ultimate termination of her parental rights to Kaleb after it was determined she signed and then attempted to withdraw a voluntary relinquishment of parental rights. At the time she signed the relinquishment, her child was living with his paternal grandmother, who hoped to adopt him. When it later became clear that the grandmother would not be able to adopt the child, Sabrina signed a notice of her withdrawal of relinquishment despite a ten-day window for do had passed. Three days later she filed the notice in superior court. That same day, apparently without being aware of the withdrawal notice, the court issued an order terminating the mother’s parental rights. Because, assuming the superior court had discretion to allow the untimely withdrawal, the Alaska Supreme Court found it did not abuse its discretion by declining to do so, so the Court affirmed termination of Sabrina’s parental rights. View "S.V. (Mother) v. Alaska, DHSS, OCS" on Justia Law

A husband and wife appealed denials of their Permanent Fund Dividends (PFDs) for 2014 and 2015. The husband’s 2014 PFD application was denied because he had been absent from the state for more than five years, creating a presumption of nonresidence that he was unable to rebut. The wife’s application was denied because her PFD eligibility as an accompanying military spouse depended on her husband’s. After the denials were affirmed by an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), the couple appealed to the superior court. While this appeal was pending they both applied for 2015 PFDs and were again denied. The husband’s 2015 application was denied because his residency for PFD purposes was severed in the 2014 PFD proceedings and he had not reestablished it. The wife’s application was again denied because of her accompanying-spouse status. They appealed the 2015 denials too; the superior court consolidated the 2014 and 2015 cases and affirmed both denials. The Alaska Supreme Court determined neither spouse met the residency requirements to qualify for either a 2014 or a 2015 PFD under the plain language of the applicable statute. The Court therefore affirmed the ALJs’ decisions. View "Jones v. Alaska, Department of Revenue" on Justia Law

After a limited liability company and its individual members failed to make payments on a real estate loan, the lender sued. One member, Kenneth Duffus, cross-claimed against a second member, Lee Baker, Jr., alleging breach of contract and tort claims related to the management of the business. Baker counterclaimed against Duffus, also alleging breach of contract and tort claims. After several years of litigation, only the claims by and between Duffus and Baker remained; the superior court granted partial summary judgment to Duffus, finding that the statutes of limitation barred Baker’s counterclaims. A trial jury found against Baker on Duffus’s breach of contract and tort claims, and awarded damages to Duffus. Baker appealed the grant of summary judgment and a number of procedural issues from the trial. Because the Alaska Supreme Court determined it was error to conclude that Baker’s claims were not compulsory counterclaims, thus changing the statutes of limitation analysis, it reversed the superior court’s grant of summary judgment, vacated the judgment, and remanded for a new trial on both Duffus’s cross-claims and Baker’s counterclaims. View "Baker v. Duffus" on Justia Law

Thomas Anderson, Sr. appealed the superior court’s dismissal of his claim that the Division of Motor Vehicles (DMV) failed to properly transfer a motorcycle endorsement from his California driver’s license to his new Alaska license in 1992. The court decided that the motorist’s claim, filed in 2017, was barred by the statute of limitations, the doctrines of laches and exhaustion of administrative remedies, and the governing DMV regulations. The court also awarded the DMV attorney’s fees calculated pursuant to the Alaska Civil Rule 82(b)(2) schedule. The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s decision primarily on laches grounds: Anderson filed his claim 25 years after the DMV’s alleged mistake, long past the time the DMV could reasonably be expected to have retained any evidence relevant to its defense. View "Anderson v. State of Alaska, Alaska Department of Administration, Division of Motor Vehicles" on Justia Law

The Alaska Workers’ Compensation Board denied a Bryce Warnke-Green's request that his employer pay for a van modified to accommodate his work-related disability. On appeal, the Alaska Workers’ Compensation Appeals Commission decided that a modifiable van was a compensable medical benefit. Warnke-Green moved for attorney’s fees. The Commission reduced the attorney’s hourly rate, deducted a few time entries, and awarded him less than half of what was requested. Warnke-Green asked the Commission to reconsider its award, but the Commission declined to do so because of its view that the Alaska Workers’ Compensation Act (the Act) allowed it to reconsider only the final decision on the merits of an appeal. The Alaska Supreme Court granted Warnke-Green's petition for review, and held that the Commission had the necessarily incidental authority to reconsider its non-final decisions. The Court also reversed the Commission’s award of attorney’s fees and remanded for an award that was fully compensable and reasonable. View "Warnke-Green v. Pro-West Contractors, LLC" on Justia Law

A son opened joint checking and savings accounts with his father. A few years later the son was injured in a car accident, settled his claim against the other driver, and deposited the settlement check into his joint savings account. A creditor of the father later levied the joint accounts and obtained approximately $90,000 - essentially all of it traceable to the son’s settlement money - in partial satisfaction of the creditor’s judgment against the father. The son intervened in the collection action, arguing that the money should be returned to him because he was the equitable owner of the funds in the accounts. After the superior court’s evidentiary hearing on the son’s claims, but before the court issued its ruling, the son sent a letter asking the court to consider AS 13.33.201-.227 as supplemental legal authority. Without mentioning the statutes the son cited, the superior court subsequently held by a preponderance of the evidence that the creditor could levy the joint accounts in their entireties because the financial institution’s account agreement the father and son signed provided that they each owned the accounts “jointly and equally . . . regardless of their net contributions.” The Alaska Supreme Court vacated the superior court’s decision and remanded for further proceedings because: (1) the son did not waive his argument regarding AS 13.33.211’s applicability; (2) the statute applied to determine the ownership interests of joint account owners in a dispute involving a third-party creditor; and (3) the correct standard of proof was not applied and the requisite statutory findings were not made. View "Schacht v. Kunimune" on Justia Law

A former employee of the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS), Terri Reynolds-Rogers, brought a wrongful discharge suit against the State. At the time of her termination she had four union grievances pending against DHSS, and her union filed another based on the termination. The union settled all five grievances in exchange for a payment to the employee. She later sued DHSS for wrongful termination, alleging both breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing and several torts, including retaliatory discharge and failure to accommodate her disabilities. The superior court granted DHSS’s motion for summary judgment and entered final judgment against the employee. After review, the Alaska Supreme Court concluded the superior court was correct in deciding that the employee’s claims were resolved by the settlement of her grievances, were barred by the statute of limitations, or were legally insufficient in light of the undisputed facts. View "Reynolds-Rogers v. Alaska, Dept. of Health & Social Services" on Justia Law

A 2014 statute and 2013 regulation re-defined which abortions qualified as “medically necessary” for the purposes of Medicaid funding. The statute defined medically necessary abortions as those that “must be performed to avoid a threat of serious risk to the life or physical health of a woman from continuation of the woman’s pregnancy” as a result of a number of listed medical conditions; the regulation was similarly restrictive. Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest challenged both the statute and regulation as unconstitutional, and the superior court held that both measures violated the equal protection clause of the Alaska Constitution. The court reasoned that these measures imposed a “high-risk, high- hazard” standard on abortion funding unique among Medicaid services, and held that our 2001 decision striking down an earlier abortion funding restriction on equal protection grounds compelled the same result. The State appealed, arguing that the statute and regulation should be interpreted more leniently and therefore do not violate the Alaska Constitution’s equal protection clause. The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s decision: the statute’s and the regulation’s facially different treatment of pregnant women based upon their exercise of reproductive choice required the Court to apply strict scrutiny, and the proposed justifications for the funding restrictions "did not withstand such exacting examination." View "Alaska v. Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest" on Justia Law

In 2002, Charles Herron, who was under the influence of alcohol and not old enough to legally possess or consume it, was involved in a single-vehicle accident in Bethel, Alaska A 15-year-old passenger in Herron’s vehicle, Angelina Trailov, was injured. Herron was insured by Allstate Insurance Company. Allstate filed a complaint for declaratory relief in the U.S. District Court in anticipation of Herron confessing judgment in the accident-related personal injury suit. Allstate requested a declaration that “its good faith attempt to settle Trailov and Mary Kenick's (Trailov's mother) claims satisfied its obligation to its insured, and a further declaration that Allstate [wa]s not obligated to pay any portion of the confessed judgment that exceed[ed] the limit of the bodily injury coverage afforded Herron under the [p]olicy.” Due to Herron’s April confession of judgment and assignment of claims, Allstate amended its federal complaint for declaratory relief. The only material addition was the statement that Herron had confessed judgment and assigned his rights against Allstate. The issue this case presented for the Alaska Supreme Court's review centered on the preclusive effect of that declaratory judgment in favor of the insurance company against its insured in federal court in a subsequent state court proceeding. The superior court concluded that the declaratory judgment had no preclusive effect on a negligent adjustment action brought in state court by the insured’s assignees against the insurance company and its claims adjuster. The state action proceeded to an 11-day jury trial ending with a multi-million dollar verdict against the insurance company and its claims adjuster. The declaratory judgment determined that the insurance company and the adjuster acted reasonably when they offered policy limits to settle the underlying claim against the insured. Because the insurance company’s and adjustor’s reasonableness in adjusting the insurance claim was a necessary element of a negligent adjustment tort, the Supreme Court held that the assignees of the insured were precluded from relitigating this issue. The superior court therefore erred in denying the insurance company’s and claims adjuster’s motions for summary judgment. View "Allstate Insurance Company v. Kenick" on Justia Law

Two separate appeals from involuntary commitment orders, brought by two appellants, one of whom also appealed a related involuntary medication order were consolidated for the Alaska Supreme Court's review. The challenged orders expired while the respective appeals were pending; the issue each case presented centered on whether the Supreme Court should revisit its mootness jurisprudence in involuntary commitment and involuntary medication appeals. The Court held that all appeals of involuntary admissions for treatment and involuntary medication were categorically exempt from the mootness doctrine. After reviewing each case on its merits and finding no error in the orders appealed, the Court affirmed in each case. View "In Re Hospitalization of Naomi B." on Justia Law