Justia Alaska Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

After a work-related injury left appellant Laurie Vandenberg (a nurse) with a permanent partial impairment, she applied for reemployment benefits. The rehabilitation specialist assigned to her case used two job descriptions to describe one of her former jobs because the specialist did not think that a single job description adequately described that former job. The Alaska Workers’ Compensation Board decided that only one job description was needed and that appellant retained the physical capacity to perform the functions of that job description; it therefore denied her reemployment benefits. The Alaska Workers’ Compensation Appeals Commission affirmed the Board’s decision. Appellant appealed, arguing that the Board erred in selecting only one job description because the job description it selected did not adequately describe the job she held. The Supreme Court agreed and reversed the Commission’s decision. View "Vandenberg v. Dept. of Health & Social Services" on Justia Law

Wasilla landowner, appellant Ray Pursche appealed the tax foreclosure against his property, arguing that the property was exempt from local property taxes because it was originally transferred to his predecessor by federal patent. He claimed that the federal patent made this property beyond state court jurisdiction. The Supreme Court affirmed the tax foreclosure, finding that after a patent issues, property disputes must generally be resolved in state court. Land once owned by the federal government was subject to local property taxes after it was conveyed to a private party. View "Pursche v. Matanuska-Susitna Borough" on Justia Law

John and Xong Chao Beeson owned and lived in the Palmer West Subdivision in the City of Palmer. Since they moved to the property in 1985, the Beesons have experienced several flooding incidents on their land, which they attributed to water backing up against Helen Drive, a two-lane road adjacent to their property originally built by Matanuska-Susitna Borough but controlled by the City since 2003. After the City installed a water line under Helen Drive and repaved the road surface in 2005, the flooding became more severe and caused serious damage to the Beesons’ home. The Beesons brought an inverse condemnation claim against the City, arguing that the City was liable for the damage to their property. After a three-day bench trial the superior court found that the City’s road reconstruction project was not a substantial cause of the flooding and therefore the City could not be liable in inverse condemnation. The superior court also granted attorney’s fees to the City. The Beesons appealed both rulings. After review, the Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s decision with respect to the inverse condemnation claim and remanded for further proceedings regarding attorney’s fees. View "Beeson v. City of Palmer" on Justia Law

Federal law required electric utilities to purchase power generated by cogeneration facilities that met certain standards. A facility must be certified that it meets the standards. It may self-certify, by filing a form describing the project and asserting that it believes it meets the standards, or it may request a formal determination that it meets the standards. The Regulatory Commission of Alaska implemented this certification scheme on the state level, but the determination whether a facility qualifies fell within exclusive federal jurisdiction. The main issue this case presented for the Alaska Supreme Court's review was whether a self-certification constituted a federal determination that a facility meets the standards and whether the Commission must defer to this self-certification. The Court concluded that a self-certification did not constitute a federal determination and that the Commission’s broad discretion to implement the federal scheme meant it had the power to require a developer to formally certify its projects. View "Alpine Energy, LLC v. Matanuska Electric Association" on Justia Law

A group of Lake and Peninsula Borough voters filed suit against two local elected officials, alleging various violations of state and local conflict of interest laws and the common law conflict of interest doctrine. The officials moved for summary judgment on the ground that the voters failed to exhaust administrative remedies. The superior court granted the motion and stayed the proceedings so that the Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) could review several of the voters’ claims. In doing so the court relied in part on case law involving the separate doctrine of primary jurisdiction, which allowed a court to stay proceedings to give the relevant administrative agency an initial pass at the claims. The matter came before the Supreme Court, and it reverse the superior court’s order after review, finding that because the voters were not required to exhaust administrative remedies and because the order staying the proceedings could not be affirmed on independent grounds. View "Seybert v. Alsworth" on Justia Law

In 2014, a petition was filed on behalf of the Seacliff Condominium Association for an order requiring Heather R., the owner of a condominium in Seacliff, to undergo an involuntary 72-hour psychiatric evaluation. The petition alleged that Heather was a threat to “herself . . . and her neighbors” based on “[y]ears of confrontation, threats, aberrant and widely swinging behavior suggesting drug use,” including “taking pictures inside people’s houses, inability to have normal social interactions, [and] lying [in] wait to confront neighbors.” After conducting a statutorily required ex parte screening investigation, which did not include an interview with Heather, the superior court master determined that there was probable cause to believe that she was mentally ill and presented a likelihood of serious harm to others. Heather appealed the evaluation order, claiming that the ex parte investigation violated due process and that the master failed to properly conduct the statutorily required screening investigation. Although this appeal was technically moot, the Supreme Court reached the merits of these claims under the public interest exception. The Court vacated the evaluation order because the superior court master failed to conduct the interview as part of the screening investigation required by statute; the Court did not reach the due process question. View "In Re Necessity for the Hospitalization of Heather R." on Justia Law

The Office of Children’s Services (OCS) filed a petition to terminate a mother’s parental rights to two of her daughters. The superior court granted the petition. The mother appealed the superior court’s finding that OCS made active efforts to reunify the family, as required by state and federal law, as well as a few of the factual findings underlying this conclusion. Because the superior court did not clearly err in finding that OCS made active efforts by providing services geared toward reunification the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the termination decision. View "Denny M. v. Alaska" on Justia Law

Article VII, section 1 of the Alaska Constitution required the state legislature to “establish and maintain a system of public schools” open to all children in the state. To fulfill this mandate, the legislature defined three types of school districts according to where the district is located: city school districts, borough school districts, and regional education attendance areas. “[E]ach organized borough is a borough school district”; a borough must “establish[], maintain[], and operate[] a system of public schools on an areawide basis.” Local school boards managed and controlled these school districts under authority delegated by AS 14.12.020. The statute required local borough and city governments to raise money “from local sources to maintain and operate” their local schools. The superior court held that this required local contribution was an unconstitutional dedication of a “state tax or license.” But the minutes of the constitutional convention and the historical context of those proceedings suggested that the delegates intended that local communities and the State would share responsibility for their local schools. Those proceedings also indicated that the delegates did not intend for state-local cooperative programs like the school funding formula to be included in the term “state tax or license.” These factors distinguished this case from previous cases where the Alaska Supreme Court found that state funding mechanisms violated the dedicated funds clause. The Court therefore held that the existing funding formula did not violate the constitution, and reversed the superior court’s grant of summary judgment holding that the funding formula was unconstitutional. View "Alaska v. Ketchikan Gateway Borough" on Justia Law

The Lieutenant Governor declined to certify a proposed ballot initiative that would ban commercial set net fishing in nonsubsistence areas, reasoning that the initiative was a constitutionally prohibited appropriation of public assets. The superior court approved the initiative, concluding that set netters were not a distinct commercial user group and that the legislature and Board of Fisheries would retain discretion to allocate the salmon stock to other commercial fisheries. After the Supreme Court's review of the matter, it concluded that set netters were a distinct commercial user group that deserved recognition in the context of the constitutional prohibition on appropriations. The Court therefore reverse the superior court’s judgment because this proposed ballot initiative would have completely appropriated salmon away from set netters and prohibited the legislature from allocating any salmon to that user group. View "Lieutenant Governor of the State of Alaska v. Alaska Fisheries Conservation Alliance" on Justia Law

In April 2011 the City of Petersburg petitioned the State of Alaska's Local Boundary Commission to dissolve the City and incorporate a new borough. In August the Boundary Commission accepted the petition and published notice. In October the City and Borough of Juneau notified the Boundary Commission "of its intent to file an annexation petition that will pertain to some of the same boundaries as are at issue in the petition recently filed by the City of Petersburg." Juneau intended to annex almost half of the area sought for the Petersburg Borough. Juneau requested that the Boundary Commission postpone the Petersburg proceedings to allow for concurrent consideration of the two petitions. Boundary Commission staff recommended denying Juneau’s consolidation request, explaining that the Boundary Commission would have Juneau’s annexation petition, Juneau’s responsive brief in the Petersburg proceedings, and Juneau’s comments, and that during the final hearing the Boundary Commission could amend the Petersburg petition. The Boundary Commission ultimately denied Juneau’s request for consolidation or postponement, with one commissioner noting that "Juneau . . . will have opportunities to comment and [provide] testimony at the hearing." The primary issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review was whether the Boundary Commission violated the Alaska Constitution when it approved the incorporation of the new borough over the objection of the existing borough. After review, the Court concluded that the Boundary Commission’s decision complied with constitutional requirements and therefore affirmed the superior court’s decision upholding the Boundary Commission’s incorporation decision. View "City & Borough of Juneau v. Alaska Local Boundary Comm'n" on Justia Law