Alaska Supreme Court Decisions 2016
Date: December 30, 2016
Citation: 386 P.3d 1228
Docket Number: S-15971
Justia Opinion Summary: The sole question on appeal in this matter was whether the decedent's handwritten name at the beginning of the document was a "signature" as contemplated by AS 13.12.502(b). This was an issue of first impression, and the…
Date: December 9, 2016
Docket Numbers: S-14740, S-14826
Justia Opinion Summary: Two credit card holders defaulted on their accounts, and the issuing bank elected to litigate debt-collection actions. After courts entered default judgments against both card holders, the card holders filed new and…
Date: December 9, 2016
Docket Number: S-15669
Justia Opinion Summary: In July 2012 Erin Long was driving toward Sitka when Robert Arnold turned his truck onto the road, cutting her off and forcing her into a ditch. Long was traveling approximately ten miles per hour when she drove off the…
Date: December 9, 2016
Citation: 387 P.3d 16
Docket Number: S-15860
Justia Opinion Summary: In September 2003, Bachner Company Inc. entered into a contract with the Alaska Department of Administration, to lease portions of the Denali Building in Fairbanks. After a ten-year lease term and a one-year renewal,…
Date: December 9, 2016
Docket Number: S-15891
Justia Opinion Summary: Oil producers (the Producers) challenged an administrative decision (the Decision) in which the Alaska Department of Revenue (DOR) decided to treat separate oil and gas fields operated by common working interest owners…
Date: December 2, 2016
Citation: 384 P.3d 791
Docket Number: S-15372
Justia Opinion Summary: A woman was admitted to a hospital emergency room with pregnancy-related complications. The attending physician recommended that she be transported by medivac to a different facility. The woman and her husband informed…
Date: December 2, 2016
Citation: 384 P.3d 801
Docket Number: S-15784
Justia Opinion Summary: School bus driver and appellant Jonathan Bockus injured his back moving a gate. He had two spinal surgeries, and his surgeon ultimately recommended a third. About the same time, the driver’s employer scheduled a medical…
Date: November 25, 2016
Citation: 384 P.3d 773
Docket Number: S-15933
Justia Opinion Summary: Providence Alaska Medical Center terminated Dr. Michael Brandner’s hospital privileges without notice and an opportunity to be heard after determining he had violated hospital policy by failing to report an Alaska State…
Date: November 25, 2016
Citation: 384 P.3d 785
Docket Number: S-15983
Justia Opinion Summary: A driver and his passengers sued another driver for injuries arising from an accident. After a trial, the jury returned an award of past pain and suffering damages for the driver, and past medical expenses and pain and…
Date: November 18, 2016
Citation: 384 P.3d 758
Docket Numbers: S-15847, S-15868
Justia Opinion Summary: The respondent in involuntary commitment and medication proceedings, Jacob S., appealed a few issues related to findings that he was mentally ill and posed a risk of harm to others. The superior court ordered both 30-and…
Date: November 4, 2016
Citation: 382 P.3d 1168
Docket Number: S-15528
Justia Opinion Summary: Peter Metcalfe was employed briefly by the State in the early 1970s and contributed to the Public Employees’ Retirement System (PERS). In 1981, Metcalfe took a refund of his PERS contributions. Under a statute in effect…
Date: October 26, 2016
Citation: 382 P.3d 1154
Docket Number: S-16152
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: October 21, 2016
Citation: 382 P.3d 1143
Docket Numbers: S-15380, S-15649
Justia Opinion Summary: The State of Alaska and the owner of a car wash reached an agreement for the State to acquire the car wash site as part of a highway improvement project. After the State acquired the site, the owner elected not to…
Date: October 21, 2016
Citation: 382 P.3d 1137
Docket Number: S-15871
Justia Opinion Summary: A worker whose Alaska workers’ compensation case was closed in 1977 filed a new claim in 2012 related to his injury from the 1970s. The Alaska Workers’ Compensation Board dismissed the new claim, and he appealed to the…
Date: September 23, 2016
Citation: 379 P.3d 971
Docket Number: S-15801
Justia Opinion Summary: At issue in this case was the validity of an easement that Thomas Carnahan claimed extended over property owned by Keven and Marlene Windel. In addition, there were issues surrounding damage allegedly caused by…
Date: September 23, 2016
Citation: 379 P.3d 963
Docket Number: S-15951
Justia Opinion Summary: A client personally financed the sale of his business corporation. His attorney drafted documents that secured the buyer’s debt with corporate stock and an interest in the buyer’s home. Over seven years later the…
Date: September 16, 2016
Citation: 379 P.3d 183
Docket Number: S-15614
Justia Opinion Summary: A narrow strip of land in the Turnagain area of Anchorage, immediately west of Lynn Ary Park and bordering Knik Arm, is at the center of the parties' dispute in this matter. The land is in the shape of a parallelogram;…
Date: September 2, 2016
Citation: 378 P.3d 388
Docket Number: S-16049
Justia Opinion Summary: The superior court granted sole legal and primary physical custody of a child to her grandparents, after a trial at which the court found by clear and convincing evidence that leaving the child in her mother’s custody…
Date: August 26, 2016
Citation: 377 P.3d 939
Docket Number: S-15371
Justia Opinion Summary: The Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (the Department or the State) terminated the employment of seafood inspector Ernest Thomas following a contentious airport inspection that resulted in complaints by a…
Date: August 26, 2016
Citation: 377 P.3d 959
Docket Number: S-15654
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: August 26, 2016
Citation: 378 P.3d 380
Docket Number: S-15955
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: August 26, 2016
Citation: 380 P.3d 653
Docket Number: S-15965
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: August 26, 2016
Citation: 377 P.3d 952
Docket Number: S-16017
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: August 12, 2016
Citation: 376 P.3d 1255
Docket Number: S-15647
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: August 12, 2016
Citation: 377 P.3d 1
Docket Number: S-15685
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: August 12, 2016
Citation: 377 P.3d 15
Docket Number: S-15748
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: August 12, 2016
Citation: 376 P.3d 1245
Docket Number: S-16041
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: August 5, 2016
Citation: 375 P.3d 1166
Docket Number: S-15722
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: July 22, 2016
Citation: 375 P.3d 1122
Docket Numbers: S-15010, S-15030, S-15039
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: July 1, 2016
Citation: 375 P.3d 51
Docket Number: S-15536
Justia Opinion Summary: The superior court issued a 30-day involuntary commitment order after finding that Mark V. was gravely disabled and “entirely unable to fend for himself independently in the community.” Mark argued that there was…
Date: July 1, 2016
Citation: 375 P.3d 60
Docket Number: S-15854
Justia Opinion Summary: This appeal involved two petitions for long-term domestic violence protective orders. Olivia Lee-Magana prevailed both on a petition she brought against her ex-boyfriend Jacob Carpenter and on a petition he brought…
Date: June 17, 2016
Citation: 372 P.3d 904
Docket Number: S-15514
Justia Opinion Summary: Before the Alaska Workers’ Compensation Appeals Commission was created, an Alaska Workers’ Compensation Board decision could be appealed to the superior court, and a party dissatisfied with the superior court’s final…
Date: June 17, 2016
Citation: 385 P.3d 841
Docket Number: S-15615
Justia Opinion Summary: A superior court ordered the Child Support Services Division (CSSD) to audit the child support and spousal support accounts of a divorced couple. The audits revealed that the agency had collected too much child support…
Date: June 17, 2016
Citation: 374 P.3d 395
Docket Number: S-15665
Justia Opinion Summary: Defendant Aaron Young was accused of involvement in a shooting and convicted at trial, in part on the strength of three eyewitness identifications. He challenged the admissibility of two of the identifications on due…
Date: June 17, 2016
Citation: 375 P.3d 39
Docket Number: S-15948
Justia Opinion Summary: Jasmine was born in February 2009 to Clementine and Jermaine. The Office of Children’s Services (OCS) took emergency custody of the child after receiving reports that her mother’s conduct had placed her at risk of harm.…
Date: June 10, 2016
Citation: 377 P.3d 916
Docket Number: S-15684
Justia Opinion Summary: A husband and wife separated after the husband was charged with sexually abusing their minor daughter. The husband eventually pleaded guilty to first degree indecent exposure. In the civil divorce suit, the superior…
Date: May 13, 2016
Citation: 373 P.3d 506
Docket Number: S-15529
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: May 13, 2016
Citation: 373 P.3d 495
Docket Number: S-15588
Justia Opinion Summary: In November 2010, Stevie Lander was driving on an icy road. Her vehicle slid into a Bonnie Luther's car. Although Luther reported no injuries at the scene of the accident, that evening she went to the emergency room for…
Date: May 13, 2016
Citation: 373 P.3d 486
Docket Number: S-15844
Justia Opinion Summary: The superior court in this case divided the marital property, granted child custody and determined the child support obligation. On appeal of that order, the noncustodial, nonresident parent claimed the superior court…
Date: May 13, 2016
Citation: 373 P.3d 521
Docket Number: S-15886
Justia Opinion Summary: The parties to this appeal reached a settlement in their divorce, providing that the qualified marital portion of the husband’s pension would be distributed to the wife and the nonqualified portion would be distributed…
Date: May 6, 2016
Citation: 373 P.3d 473
Docket Number: S-15682
Justia Opinion Summary: 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,…
Date: April 29, 2016
Citation: 372 P.3d 235
Docket Number: S-15725
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: April 29, 2016
Citation: 372 P.3d 240
Docket Number: S-15840
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: April 22, 2016
Citation: 371 P.3d 614
Docket Numbers: S-15326, S-15356
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: April 15, 2016
Citation: 371 P.3d 609
Docket Number: S-15746
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: April 8, 2016
Citation: 371 P.3d 602
Docket Number: S-15935
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: March 25, 2016
Citation: 371 P.3d 255
Docket Number: S-14935
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: March 25, 2016
Citation: 370 P.3d 1084
Docket Number: S-15018
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: March 25, 2016
Citation: 370 P.3d 1101
Docket Number: S-15683
Justia Opinion Summary: The Ninth Circuit federal Court of Appeals certified two questions of Alaska law to the State Supreme Court. Ingaldson Fitzgerald was an Alaska law firm. Attorneys Liability Protection Society, Inc. (ALPS) was a Montana…
Date: March 25, 2016
Citation: 370 P.3d 1092
Docket Number: S-15687
Justia Opinion Summary: Linden Fyfe was stopped by police while driving on a stretch of highway designated as a "traffic safety corridor." He was charged and convicted of driving under the influence of alcohol. At sentencing the trial court…
Date: March 25, 2016
Citation: 371 P.3d 251
Docket Number: S-15824
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: March 18, 2016
Citation: 370 P.3d 603
Docket Number: S-15245
Justia Opinion Summary: After a two-day hearing, the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) dismissed Qwynten Richards from her Ph.D. program for failing to respond to feedback from her professors. An Appeals Committee affirmed Richards’s…
Date: March 18, 2016
Citation: 371 P.3d 599
Docket Number: S-15492
Justia Opinion Summary: T.V., a minor, was struck by a car in 2012. T.V.’s father, Jack Vinson, hired counsel and petitioned the superior court on T.V.’s behalf for approval of insurance settlements related to that accident. Jack advised the…
Date: March 18, 2016
Citation: 370 P.3d 1070
Docket Number: S-15870
Justia Opinion Summary: A mother and father divorced, and the final decree granted them joint physical custody of their two minor children. Three years later, at age 47, the father quit his job, moved from Alaska to retire in Arizona, and…
Date: March 18, 2016
Citation: 370 P.3d 595
Docket Number: S-15952
Justia Opinion Summary: In the early morning hours of August 29, 2013, Palmer police officer James Gipson noticed Moira M. walking alone along the road. After Moira declined Gipson’s offer of a ride, Gipson continued driving until he noticed a…
Date: March 11, 2016
Citation: 368 P.3d 607
Docket Number: S-15913
Justia Opinion Summary: Maya S. was the three-year-old daughter of Sarah S. and Trevor M. Trevor’s criminal history included a number of assault charges and domestic violence restraining orders involving different victims; he has also struggled…
Date: March 4, 2016
Citation: 372 P.3d 207
Docket Number: S-14915
Justia Opinion Summary: Brett and Josephine Ambridge defaulted on their home loan. Alaska Trustee, LLC sent the Ambridges a notice of default that failed to state the full amount due as required by the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act…
Date: March 4, 2016
Citation: 369 P.3d 245
Docket Number: S-15696
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: February 19, 2016
Citation: 367 P.3d 1167
Docket Number: S-15805
Justia Opinion Summary: This appeal arose from an accident in a parking lot in which a vehicle driven by Ronda Martens struck pedestrian Juan Martinez-Morales as he crossed the lot. A jury found that Martens was not negligent, and the superior…
Date: February 12, 2016
Citation: 367 P.3d 683
Docket Number: S-15489
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: February 12, 2016
Citation: 367 P.3d 1156
Docket Number: S-15592
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: February 5, 2016
Citation: 367 P.3d 32
Docket Number: S-15600
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: February 5, 2016
Citation: 367 P.3d 1146
Docket Number: S-15648
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: January 29, 2016
Citation: 366 P.3d 530
Docket Number: S-15793
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: January 15, 2016
Citation: 367 P.3d 17
Docket Number: S-15671
Justia Opinion Summary: 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,…
Date: January 13, 2016
Citation: 365 P.3d 345
Docket Number: S-15880
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: January 8, 2016
Citation: 366 P.3d 66
Docket Number: S-15262
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
Date: January 8, 2016
Citation: 366 P.3d 86
Docket Numbers: S-15811, S-15841
Justia Opinion Summary: 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…
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