Justia Alaska Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The superior court ordered a guardianship based in part on expert testimony that the father could not yet be left alone with his daughter, given the state of his progress with sex offender treatment, and in part because his probation conditions prohibited unsupervised contact with anyone under 18. A father appealed a superior court order granting long-term guardianship of his daughter to maternal relatives in another state. The father had a history of inappropriate sexual relationships, and during four years of the child’s life was incarcerated following a federal conviction for transportation of child pornography. The Alaska Supreme Court concluded the superior court had the statutory authority to establish a guardianship under these circumstances. But the court’s finding that the daughter was likely to suffer serious emotional or physical harm if returned to her father’s care was based in part on findings that lack the required basis in the expert testimony. The Court remanded for the superior court to consider whether the remaining findings were sufficient to support the guardianship order. View "Jude M. v. Alaska Dept. of Health & Social Svcs." on Justia Law

In a 2008 divorce decree based on a settlement agreement, an ex-husband was ordered to sell the marital home and pay his ex-wife her share of the estate. But by 2015, he had not yet done so. The superior court ordered the ex-husband to sell the home in 90 days and entered judgment against him after the deadline passed. The ex-husband appealed on due process and equity grounds, and the ex-wife appealed seeking prejudgment interest, attorney’s fees, and costs. Because both parties’ arguments lacked merit, the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s order. View "Easley v. Easley" on Justia Law

A father requested court-appointed counsel in a child custody modification proceeding after learning that the mother had hired a private attorney. The court denied the request. The father (supported in part by several amici curiae) claimed that the denial violated his due process and equal protection rights under theAlaska Constitution. The Supreme Court disagreed, declining to expand its prior decisions by mandating court-appointed counsel for every indigent parent in a child custody proceeding when the opposing parent was represented by private counsel. The Court concluded that on the facts of this case the father’s constitutional rights were not violated by the denial of court-appointed counsel. View "Dennis O. v. Stephanie O." on Justia Law

Alleging that parenting failures waived the biological father’s consent, a stepfather petitioned to adopt his wife’s daughter over the biological father’s objection. The superior court determined that the proposed adoption was not in the child’s best interests and denied the petition. On reconsideration the trial court noted that the child’s best interests determination was sufficient to deny the petition and concluded that a determination whether the biological father had waived consent was unnecessary, but nonetheless determined that the biological father’s actions did not constitute a waiver of consent. The stepfather appealed. After review, the Supreme Court found that because the record supported the court’s best interests determination (and that by itself was sufficient to block the adoption) the Court affirmed the decision to deny the adoption petition. View "In Re Adoption of Hannah L." on Justia Law

Aaron Steiner began a romantic relationship with Juanita Omadlao in May 2013, while Omadlao was still married to David Coulson. Coulson learned about the affair and filed for divorce. After the divorce proceedings ended, Coulson sued Steiner, claiming alienation of affections, fraud and civil conspiracy, and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress. The superior court granted Steiner summary judgment on all three of Coulson’s claims. The court concluded that Alaska does not recognize a tort for alienation of affections and that Coulson’s remaining claims were derivative of Coulson’s alienation of affections claim and likewise barred by Alaska law. The Supreme Court agreed that Steiner was entitled to summary judgment on the alienation of affections claim based on our prior case law. But the Court concluded Steiner was not entitled to summary judgment on Coulson’s other claims because those claims were based, at least in part, on Steiner’s conduct during the divorce proceedings, not on his role in causing Coulson’s divorce. View "Coulson v. Steiner" on Justia Law

Shanda Horning was eligible for healthcare from the Indian Health Service (IHS) because she was an Alaska Native. Donovan Horning had unvested post-retirement healthcare benefits through the military’s TRICARE program. When the superior court divided the marital estate after the couple’s divorce trial, it did not classify, value, or distribute either party’s healthcare, finding instead that each had “an equal benefit that [was] in essence a wash for the purpose of dividing the marital estate.” Shanda appealed, arguing her eligibility for IHS healthcare was separate property, that Donovan’s TRICARE benefit was marital property, and that it was therefore error for the superior court to use her separate property to offset Donovan’s marital property. After review, the Alaska Supreme Court agreed, vacated the superior court’s property distribution order and remanded for further proceedings. View "Horning v. Horning" on Justia Law

Alex H., a prisoner, challenged the superior court’s denial of his request for transport to attend in person his parental rights termination trial, and, therefore, the ultimate termination of his parental rights. He argued that when denying his transport request the superior court: (1) abused its discretion by concluding in its statutory analysis that transport was not required; (2) abused its discretion or erred by failing to consider all required factors for the statutory analysis; and (3) separately violated his due process rights by denying him in-person attendance at the parental rights termination trial. Because the superior court considered all relevant factors the parties presented to it, because it was not obvious that considering additional factors would have changed the court’s statutory analysis, and because the prisoner’s due process rights were not violated, the Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s transport decision and ultimate termination of the prisoner’s parental rights. View "Alex H. v. Dept. of Health & Social Services" on Justia Law

A woman's premarital student loan was consolidated with other student loans incurred during marriage. Her husband argued at the couple's divorce trial that he should not be responsible for the consolidated loans because they contained the premarital debt and because his wife had wasted loan proceeds by gambling. The superior court, however, held the parties equally responsible for the loans, finding that it was impossible to extricate the premarital loan from the consolidated loans and that the amounts were all marital debt primarily used to support the family while the wife attended school. It further found that the husband had failed to prove a waste of marital assets. The husband argued on appeal to the Supreme Court that these findings were erroneous and that the superior court was biased against him. Concluding that the court's findings were supported by the evidence and that there was no merit to the bias allegation, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Wagner v. Wagner" on Justia Law

A mother appealed an order reducing the amount of child support the father was required to pay. She argued that the superior court relied on incorrect income calculations from the Child Support Services Division (CSSD) and that it erred in finding a material change in circumstances sufficient to warrant a reduction in child support. She also argued that the court should have required the father to submit an income affidavit, and that its failure to do so improperly shifted to her the burden of proving the father’s income. After its review, the Supreme Court agreed that CSSD's income calculations were incorrect, that it was error for the court to adopt them, and that the father should have been required to submit an income affidavit. View "Shanigan v. Shanigan" on Justia Law

A mother and her eight children were routinely severely abused by the father of the younger children while living in another state. The mother fled to Alaska with four of her daughters in 2013. After the Office of Children’s Services (OCS) obtained temporary custody of the children, the mother resisted OCS’s efforts to reunify the family and refused to participate in supervised visits with her daughters. She left Alaska in October 2014, maintaining only sporadic contact with her daughters, and she had not returned. The superior court terminated the mother’s and father’s parental rights with respect to two of the younger daughters, finding that: the children were in need of aid due to abandonment and other statutory factors; that the parents had not remedied the conduct that made the children in need of aid; that OCS had made reasonable efforts toward reunification; and that termination was in the daughters’ best interests. The mother appealed the termination of her parental rights but did not appeal the superior court’s finding that her children were initially in need of aid. Finding that the superior court's judgment was amply supported by the record, the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed. View "Joy B. v. Alaska Dept. of Health & Soc. Svcs." on Justia Law