Justia Alaska Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

A couple with three children divorced after 15 years of marriage. In 2012, the superior court ordered the father to pay roughly $1,500 per month in child support. That calculation relied on a finding that the father’s income was $40,000 annually despite his self-reported financial documents showing significantly less income. The father appealed and the Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s findings and support order in early 2014. Before that appeal was resolved, the father moved to modify his support obligation, filing similar self-reported financial documents and arguing that his actual income was less than $10,000 per year as shown on his 2013 tax return. The superior court denied his motion to modify without an evidentiary hearing. It also awarded close to full attorney’s fees to the mother despite the fact that she raised her fee request in her opposition to the motion to modify and never made a separate motion for fees. The father appealed the denial of his motion to modify his child support obligation without an evidentiary hearing. He also appealed the superior court’s award of attorney’s fees in the absence of a motion for fees. After further review, the Supreme Court affirmed the denial of the father’s motion to modify child support without a hearing, concluding that an evidentiary hearing was not required because the father presented no new evidence that would require a hearing. But it was error to award attorney’s fees without either requiring the mother to file a motion for fees or advising the father that he had a right to respond to the fee request made in the mother’s opposition brief. The Court therefore vacated the superior court’s fee award and remanded to give the father an opportunity to respond. View "Limeres v. Limeres" on Justia Law

A former airline employee sued his former employer for wrongful termination without first attempting to arbitrate his claims under the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement subject to the federal Railway Labor Act. The superior court dismissed the employee’s complaint for failure to exhaust his contractual remedies. It also denied him leave to amend his complaint a second time on the ground that the six-month limitations period for such claims had expired. The employee appealed. After review, the Supreme Court held that the employee’s right to bring his claims in state court was not clearly and unmistakably waived under the collective bargaining agreement and he therefore should have been allowed to pursue them. The Court agreed with the superior court, however, that the employee’s claim that the union breached its duty of fair representation was time-barred. View "Bernard v. Alaska Airlines, Inc." on Justia Law

The parties in this case divorced. The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review centered on the nature of the parties' marital interest in a limited liability company. They eventually agreed that the husband would retain the ownership interest but the wife would receive 25% “of the net commission” from certain sales if they occurred within a limited time after the divorce. When a sale occurred, the parties disagreed on how to define “net commission”: the wife contended that it meant the commission received by the company, but the husband contended that it meant only his share of it. The wife sought discovery in support of her interpretation of the agreement. The husband moved for a protective order, and the parties’ attorneys compromised on some limited production. Although the husband produced information that appeared to satisfy the compromise, the wife filed a motion to compel. The court granted the motion to compel and awarded the wife attorney’s fees for having had to file it. Then, following an evidentiary hearing, the superior court agreed with the wife’s interpretation of the settlement agreement. The husband appealed both the decision on the merits and the award of attorney’s fees on the motion to compel. Because the language of the agreement and relevant extrinsic evidence favored the wife’s interpretation of “net commission,” the Supreme Court affirmed the superior court’s decision of that issue. But because the Court could not find the rationale for the superior court’s award of attorney’s fees to the wife on her motion to compel, it remanded that issue to the superior court for reconsideration. View "Gunn v. Gunn" 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

John Botson was arrested for driving under the influence. According to a breath test, his blood alcohol level was .141. The police officer informed Botson of his constitutional right to an independent chemical test, which Botson declined. But unbeknownst to Botson and the police officer administering the test, the breath test device had produced an error code related to one of its quality assurance mechanisms. Botson argues that his breath test result was inadmissible under the Anchorage Municipal Code, which required breath tests to be conducted in compliance with methods approved by the Alaska Department of Public Safety. He also argued that suppression was required under the Due Process Clause of the Alaska Constitution because his ignorance of the error code prevented him from knowingly and intelligently waiving his constitutional right to an independent chemical test. But although the administration of Botson’s breath test may not have strictly complied with approved methods, Botson did not contest the district court’s finding that the error code had no bearing on the accuracy of the test. Accordingly, the Supreme Court agreed with the district court’s and the court of appeals’ conclusions that the breath test result was admissible under Alaska's “substantial compliance” doctrine. The Supreme Court also agreed that Botson validly waived his right to an independent chemical test because he had a basic understanding of that right before declining the test. View "Botson v. Municipality of Anchorage" 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

A non-custodial parent moved to modify a child support order after she quit her job in Anchorage, moved to a remote village, and adopted a subsistence lifestyle. Although the parent acknowledged that she was voluntarily unemployed, she argued that her decision was reasonable in light of her cultural, spiritual, and religious needs. The superior court disagreed and denied the motion. The parent appealed, arguing that the superior court gave inadequate weight to her cultural and religious needs and that the child support order violated her right to the free exercise of her religion. The Supreme Court affirmed, finding that the superior court adequately considered all relevant factors in deciding not to modify the child support order. "And there was no plain error in the court’s failure to anticipate the free exercise claim, which the parent raises for the first time on appeal." View "Sharpe v. Sharpe" 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