Justia Alaska Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In February 2012, Alaska Airlines terminated Helen Lingley, a longtime employee, for violating company rules and polices after she allegedly took earbuds from a left-on-board box, made contradictory statements during the ensuing investigation, and made discourteous comments about her coworkers. The terms and conditions of Lingley’s employment were governed by a collective bargaining agreement negotiated by Lingley’s union,the International Association of Machinists and AerospaceWorkers, pursuant to the federal Railway Labor Act (RLA). This agreement broadly incorporated Alaska Airlines’ rules and policies and gave the company the right to change those rules and policies at any time. Lingley sued Alaska Airlines for wrongful termination without first attempting to arbitrate her claims under the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement subject to the RLA. The superior court denied the Lingley leave to amend her complaint, concluding that her claims and proposed claims were precluded by failure to exhaust contractual remedies and were preempted by the RLA. The Supreme Court found the collective bargaining agreement did not clearly and unmistakably waive the Lingley's right to litigate her claims, a prerequisite to finding her claims precluded. "And a number of her proposed claims may have an independent state law basis that does not depend on an interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement; such claims would not be preempted by the Railway Labor Act." Accordingly the Court reversed the superior court order denying leave to amend. View "Lingley v. Alaska Airlines, Inc." on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Alaska Supreme Court's review arose from competing claims of right to the pore space in a large limestone formation about a mile underground. Cook Inlet Natural Gas Storage Alaska, LLC (CINGSA) had leases with the holders of the mineral rights, the State of Alaska and Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI), that allowed it to use the porous formation as a reservoir for storing injected natural gas. But the City of Kenai, which owned a significant part of the surface estate above the reservoir, claimed an ownership interest in the storage rights and sought compensation from CINGSA. CINGSA filed an interpleader action asking the court to decide who owns the storage rights and which party CINGSA should compensate for its use of the pore space. On summary judgment CINGSA argued that CIRI and the State owned the pore space and attendant storage rights because of the State’s reservation of certain subsurface interests as required by AS 38.05.125(a). The superior court granted CINGSA’s motion. The City appealed both the grant of summary judgment and the superior court’s award of attorney’s fees to CIRI. After review, the Supreme Court affirmed, finding that the State and CIRI indeed owned the pore space and the gas storage rights, and that it was not an abuse of discretion for the superior court to award attorney’s fees to CIRI. View "City of Kenai v. Cook Inlet Natural Gas Storage Alaska, LLC" on Justia Law

Timothy G. alleged he was abused by his stepfather repeatedly between 1997 and 2006. In 2006, Timothy reported the abuse to his mother. She took Timothy and his four siblings to a shelter, sought a protective order against the stepfather, and instituted divorce proceedings. The Office of Children’s Services (OCS) then substantiated the report of harm, removed the children from their mother’s care, and placed them in foster care. In 2012, Timothy filed a complaint naming OCS and his stepfather as defendants. He sought compensatory damages from OCS, claiming that “[a]s a direct and proximate consequence of [OCS’s] breach of [its] dut[y] of care, [he] suffered physical injury, psychological and emotional injury and distress, psychological torment, torture and sexual abuse, pain and suffering, and resultant loss of earning capacity.” Timothy alleged that OCS had investigated at least ten reports of harm involving him and his siblings, but had taken no action. In response to OCS' motion to dismiss, Timothy G. asserted that the statute of limitations had been tolled on his claim because he was mentally incompetent following those years of abuse. The superior court held an evidentiary hearing on this issue and concluded that Timothy had failed to prove that he was incompetent. On appeal, Timothy argued that the superior court should have ruled in his favor if he produced more than a scintilla of evidence to support his assertion. But the Supreme Court concluded that the superior court applied the proper burden of proof and the proper test for competency, and that the court did not clearly err in finding that Timothy did not prove his incompetence. View "Timothy G. v. Alaska Dept. of Health & Social Services" on Justia Law

Under an Alaska Department of Revenue regulation, all appeals of oil and gas property tax valuation must be heard by the State Assessment Review Board (SARB), while appeals of oil and gas property taxability must be heard by the Department of Revenue (Revenue). Three municipalities challenged this regulation, arguing that it contradicted a statute that grants SARB exclusive jurisdiction over all appeals from Revenue’s “assessments” of oil and gas property. The superior court upheld the regulation as valid, concluding that it was a reasonable interpretation of the statute. But after its review, the Alaska Supreme Court concluded that the regulation was inconsistent with the plain text, legislative history, and purpose of the statute; therefore, the Supreme Court reversed the superior court’s judgment. View "City of Valdez v. Alaska" on Justia Law

The State Office of Public Advocacy (OPA) filed a petition for an ex parte protective order on behalf of an elderly woman against her adult daughter and caregiver, after receiving allegations of financial abuse made by the elderly woman’s other family members. The superior court found those allegations to be unfounded and denied the protective order. The elderly woman’s estate and the caregiver daughter sought attorney’s fees against the State in connection with both the protective order and conservatorship proceedings. The superior court awarded full reasonable fees arising from the denial of the protective order, finding that OPA’s protective order petition was brought without “just cause,” under the fee-shifting provision of AS 13.26.131(d). The superior court declined to award attorney’s fees arising from the proceeding to establish a conservatorship because the State had not “initiated” the conservatorship proceeding as required for fees under AS 13.26.131(d). The State appealed the first award, and the caregiver daughter and the estate of the woman cross-appealed the denial of the second award. After review, the Alaska Supreme Court concluded that AS 13.26.131 did not apply to elder fraud protective order proceedings; nor did Alaska Civil Rule 82. Instead, AS 44.21.415 contained a cost-recovery mechanism that allowed private parties to recover attorney’s fees against the State in such proceedings. So the Supreme Court vacated the superior court’s fee award in the elder fraud protective order proceeding. And because the State did not initiate the conservatorship proceeding here, no attorney’s fees are available against the State in that proceeding. View "Alaska Office of Public Advocacy v. Estate of Jean R." on Justia Law

After the parties to this action divorced, they shared physical and legal custody of their only child. In 2013 the mother filed a motion to modify custody requesting primary physical custody to move with the child from Fairbanks to Anchorage, and the superior court granted her primary physical custody for as long as the parties resided in different communities. The court also made findings regarding the father’s abusive communication style. The father moved to Anchorage soon after the mother, and the parties began sharing physical custody again. After an incident where the father brought the police to the mother’s residence because she had declined to give him visitation time outside the custody order, the mother again moved to modify custody. Following a three-day hearing, the court found that there was a change in circumstances and modified legal custody by giving the mother the right to make all major parenting decisions. But it declined to give the mother primary physical custody because it found that doing so would be devastating to the child and would increase the friction between the parents. The mother appealed, arguing the superior court misapplied the best interest factors. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s order. View "Sweeney v. Organ" on Justia Law

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

A federally recognized Alaska Native tribe adopted a process for adjudicating the child support obligations of parents whose children are members of the tribe or are eligible for membership, and it operated a federally funded child support enforcement agency. The Tribe sued the State and won a declaratory judgment that its tribal court system had subject matter jurisdiction over child support matters and an injunction requiring the State’s child support enforcement agency to recognize the tribal courts’ child support orders in the same way it recognized such orders from other states. Because the Supreme Court agreed that tribal courts had inherent subject matter jurisdiction to decide the child support obligations owed to children who are tribal members or were eligible for membership, and that state law thus required the State’s child support enforcement agency to recognize and enforce a tribal court’s child support orders, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Alaska v. Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska" on Justia Law