Justia Alaska Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In a prison discipline proceeding, prisoner William Johnson was found guilty of possessing contraband. He appealed his punishment to a discipline committee, which affirmed the decision. Represented by counsel, Johnson appealed to the superior court, alleging that the Department of Corrections had deprived him of due process. The court granted the State’s unopposed motion to dismiss the appeal on the ground that the prisoner’s statement of points on appeal was deficient. When Johnson moved for reconsideration but made no attempt to remedy the deficiency, the superior court denied his motion and awarded the State attorney’s fees. Johnson appealed the dismissal and the award of attorney’s fees. Finding no error, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Johnson v. Dept. of Corrections" on Justia Law

Mid-afternoon on an icy early March day, plaintiff Michele Marshall was stopped at a stoplight preparing to turn left from the outside turn lane. Defendant Matthew Peter testified that he came to a complete stop about one-half car length behind her. After about 30 seconds, the light turned green, Marshall began to move forward, and Peter released his foot from the brake. But Marshall stopped sooner than Peter expected; Peter returned his foot to the brake, attempted to stop, and slid into Marshall’s vehicle. He testified that his car “just tapped the back of her car” at a speed that “couldn’t [have] be[en] more than three miles an hour.” He had yet to place his foot on the accelerator. Marshall contended that no reasonable juror could have found Peter not negligent and that the superior court therefore should have granted her motion for a directed verdict on liability. After review of this matter, the Supreme Court concluded that the jury reasonably found the driver behind not negligent, and therefore affirmed the denial of the motion. View "Marshall v. Peter" on Justia Law

Williams Alaska Petroleum owned the North Pole refinery until 2004. Williams knew that the then-unregulated chemical sulfolane was present in refinery property groundwater, but it did not know that the sulfolane had migrated off the refinery property via underground water flow. Flint Hills Resources Alaska bought the North Pole refinery from Williams in 2004 pursuant to a contract that contained detailed terms regarding environmental liabilities, indemnification, and damages caps. Almost immediately the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation informed Flint Hills that sulfolane was to be a regulated chemical and that Flint Hills needed to find the source of the sulfolane in the groundwater. The Department contacted Flint Hills again in 2006. Flint Hills’s environmental contractor repeatedly warned Flint Hills that sulfolane could be leaving the refinery property and that more work was necessary to ascertain the extent of the problem. In 2008, Flint Hills drilled perimeter wells and discovered the sulfolane was migrating beyond its property and had contaminated drinking water in North Pole. A North Pole resident sued Flint Hills and Williams, and Flint Hills cross-claimed against Williams for indemnification. After extensive motion practice the superior court dismissed all of Flint Hills’s claims against Williams as time-barred. Flint Hills appealed. After review, the Supreme Court held that the superior court correctly applied the contract’s damages cap provision, but concluded that the court erred in finding Flint Hills’s contractual indemnification claims and part of its statutory claims were time-barred. The Court also affirmed the court’s dismissal of Flint Hills’s equitable claims. View "Flint Hills Resources Alaska, LLC v. Williams Alaska Petroleum, Inc." on Justia Law

The superior court modified a child custody decree, granting sole legal custody and primary physical custody to the child’s father and setting a visitation schedule. The mother picked the child up for summer visitation but did not share her travel plans with the father and did not answer the phone or otherwise respond when the father called for telephonic visitation with the child. After five days with no word from the mother or the child, the father filed a motion to show cause. The court ordered the mother to place the child on the phone at the scheduled telephonic visitation times, to keep the father informed of the child’s address and travel dates, and to give the child a telephone provided by the father to facilitate their telephonic visitation. The mother appealed, arguing that the custody decree did not give the father any telephonic visitation rights and that the court impermissibly modified the decree. She also argued that she did not receive adequate notice of the father’s motion. After review, the Supreme Court concluded that the court’s orders were within its inherent power to interpret and enforce the custody decree and that the mother received adequate notice of the father’s motion. View "del Rosario v. Clare" on Justia Law

Several men were in a car that rear-ended the plaintiff Linda Sellers' vehicle. She sued the car’s owner, believing he had been driving. The car’s owner moved to dismiss the lawsuit on the basis of an affidavit from a second man, who claimed he was driving at the time of the accident. Plaintiff amended her complaint to name both men. The second man then moved to dismiss the claim against him, arguing that under Alaska Civil Rule 15(c) plaintiff’s amended complaint did not relate back to the date of her initial filing and the claim was therefore barred by the statute of limitations. The district court agreed and dismissed the claim. Plaintiff proceeded to trial against the car’s owner, who defended on grounds that he had not been driving. The jury found against plaintiff, who then appealed to the superior court, arguing that the district court erred when it dismissed her claim against the second man. The superior court affirmed the district court’s decision. After granting review of the matter, the Alaska Supreme Court concluded plaintiff’s amended complaint met the requirements for relation back under Rule 15(c), and therefore reversed the superior court’s decision and remanded for further proceedings. View "Sellers v. Kurdilla" on Justia Law

A mother and father shared joint legal and physical custody of their daughter. The mother moved for sole legal and primary physical custody, alleging that a sustained lack of cooperation between the parents and other changes in their lives justified the modification of custody she requested. She moved in the alternative for a modification of the custody schedule. The superior court found there was no substantial change in circumstances justifying a modification of custody and awarded partial attorney’s fees to the father. The father appealed, but the Supreme Court affirmed these decisions. The case was remanded nevertheless for the superior court to consider whether the mother’s proposed modification of the new custody schedule would have been in the daughter’s best interests. View "Collier v. Harris" on Justia Law

Appellant James Bingman, Sr. sought to redeem his foreclosed property by offering the City of Dillingham a promissory note for the amount due, without interest, that would mature 20 years later. The taxpayer asserted that his offer would be deemed accepted unless the City satisfied certain requirements to “terminate its power of acceptance.” The City explicitly rejected the offer by letter and, at the close of the statutory redemption period, filed for a tax deed in superior court. The taxpayer intervened, arguing that he had redeemed the property, but the superior court ruled there was no contract between him and the city. The taxpayer appealed; but finding no error, the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed. View "Bingman v. City of Dillingham" on Justia Law

Floyd Cornelison injured his back at work in 1996 while shoveling dirt. He had back surgery later that year, but it did little to improve his condition. The Board found he was permanently and totally disabled (PTD) in 2001 under the "odd-lot doctrine." TIG Insurance, the workers’ compensation insurer for Floyd’s employer, did not contest that he was PTD; it reclassified his workers’ compensation benefits as PTD in 2000. Floyd also received Social Security disability payments, and the employer received an offset for those payments. The employer and TIG challenged Cornelison's continuing eligibility for workers’ compensation, relying on surreptitious video surveillance and a doctor’s report issued after the doctor viewed an edited surveillance video. Cornelison and his wife sued TIG and a number of others involved in the attempt to terminate benefits; they alleged several causes of action, contending that the video had been purposely edited to provide a false picture of the employee’s physical abilities and that the defendants had participated to varying degrees in a scheme to defraud the Alaska Workers’ Compensation Board. The trial court granted summary judgment or dismissal as to all of the defendants on all counts. After review of the matter, the Supreme Court affirmed in part, and reversed in part. The Court concluded the Cornelisons provided enough evidence to show that a material factual dispute existed about the accuracy of the edited videos and the manner in which the videos were created. They also presented more than generalized claims of emotional distress. Because the superior court failed to address the issues in dispute in the IIED claim against certain persons involved with the making of the videos, we reverse the grant of summary judgment on this claim and remand to the superior court. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "Cornelison v. TIG Insurance" on Justia Law

The Anchorage Police Department seized some of appellant Willie Jackson's personal property when he was arrested. He would be charged with several state-law felonies, which were later dropped after he was indicted on federal charges. In December 2012, nearly eight years after the Anchorage police’s initial seizure of his property, Jackson filed a conversion suit against the Municipality of Anchorage, alleging the Municipality unlawfully failed to return his seized property despite a September 2006 order from the U.S. District Court ordering its return. The Municipality moved to dismiss the case based on the statute of limitations. The superior court dismissed Jackson’s case under Alaska Civil Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted, and Jackson appealed. Because Jackson’s complaint alleged facts which, if proved, were sufficient to entitle him to some form of relief, the Alaska Supreme Court reversed the order dismissing Jackson’s complaint and remanded for further proceedings. View "Jackson v. Municipality of Anchorage" on Justia Law

In a 2007 ruling, the Alaska Supreme Court recognized that the State had "compelling interests" in aiding parents to help their minor children make informed and mature pregnancy-related decisions, and at that time, the Court indicated that a parental notification law might be implemented without unduly interfering with minors’ fundamental privacy rights. The 2010 voter-enacted Parental Notification Law revived an exception in the existing medical emancipation statute, creating considerable tension between a minor’s fundamental privacy right to reproductive choice and how the State could advance its compelling interests. By this 2016 opinion, the Alaska Court concluded that the Notification Law violated the Alaska Constitution’s equal protection guarantee and could not be enforced. "But the decision we reach today is narrow in light of the limited State interests offered to justify the Notification Law. The State expressly disclaims any interest in how a minor exercises her fundamental privacy right of reproductive choice, and it does not suggest that it has an interest in limiting abortions generally or with respect to minors specifically. And as a court we are not concerned with whether abortion is right, wrong, moral, or immoral, or with whether abortions should be available to minors without restriction. We are concerned only with whether, given its stated underlying justifications, the current Notification Law complies with the Alaska Constitution’s equal protection guarantee — and it does not." View "Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest v. Alaska" on Justia Law