This opinion is subject to correction before publication in the PACIFIC REPORTER. Readers are requested to bring errors to the attention of the Clerk of the Appellate Courts, 303 K Street, Anchorage, Alaska 99501, phone (907) 264-0608, fax (907) 264-0878, email corrections@appellate.courts.state.ak.us. OPINION CARPENETI, Chief Justice. I. INTRODUCTION Earlier in the current redistricting cycle, we issued an order remanding to the superior court with instructions to remand to the...
OPINION FABE, Justice. I. INTRODUCTION In 2008 Robert Rude, then a sitting Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI) director, and three other candidates ran as an independent "New Alliance" slate for positions on the CIRI board of directors. Shortly before the election, CIRI filed suit, claiming that the New Alliance proxy materials contained materially misleading statements. Rude and his co-defendants counterclaimed, alleging that CIRI's election procedures were unfairly tilted toward the interests...
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. A party wishing to cite a memorandum decision in a brief or at oral argument should review Appellate Rule 214(d). MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT * I. INTRODUCTION An Anchorage homeowner failed to pay his annual real property taxes. The Municipality of Anchorage published a foreclosure list in a newspaper and notified the homeowner by mail that the Municipality would foreclose on his home unless he paid his taxes. The...
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. A party wishing to cite a memorandum decision in a brief or at oral argument should review Appellate Rule 214(d). MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT * I. INTRODUCTION Anthony Brown was a prisoner who was a party to the Cleary Final Settlement Agreement ( Cleary Settlement), a class-action settlement between Alaska inmates and Alaska's Department of Corrections (DOC), which was approved by the court and incorporated into a...
OPINION FABE, Justice. I. INTRODUCTION In this appeal we address the question whether monetary damages are available to a prisoner for violations of the terms of the 1990 judicial decree approving the Cleary Final Settlement Agreement. In 2004 appellee Corrections Corporation of America contracted with the State of Alaska to house Alaska inmates at Corrections Corporation's Red Rock Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona. Byran Perotti was an Alaska inmate at Red Rock. Perotti filed a...
OPINION WINFREE, Justice. I. INTRODUCTION A bar served a man alcohol while he was visibly intoxicated, and the man murdered a woman later in the evening. The lawyer representing the bar in the subsequent dram shop action did not attempt to add the murderer as a party for apportionment of fault. Following entry of a large judgment against the bar, the bar brought a legal malpractice suit against its attorney. The attorney moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief...
OPINION CARPENETI, Chief Justice. I. INTRODUCTION In 1999, the Board of Fisheries (the Board) made a positive customary and traditional use finding in the Chitina subdistrict for the first time, thereby changing it from a "personal use" to a "subsistence" fishery. The Board reversed this decision in 2003, returning Chitina to a personal use fishery. The Alaska Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fund (AFWCF) and the Chitina Dipnetters Association, Inc., after asking the Board to reconsider...
OPINION CARPENETI, Chief Justice. I. INTRODUCTION Five disabled Alaskans sued their former representative payee (an individual appointed by the Social Security Administration to receive benefits for someone unable to manage his or her money). At the conclusion of trial, the superior court awarded both compensatory and punitive damages to the plaintiffs; it also entered certain injunctive relief against the representative payee as to both parties and non-parties. But it declined to enter...
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. A party wishing to cite a memorandum decision in a brief or at oral argument should review Appellate Rule 214(d). MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT * This appeal arises out of a long-standing banking relationship between a small business owner, Todd Christianson, and a loan officer at First National Bank Alaska, William McGrew. McGrew serviced Christianson's loans for over ten years. Over that time, in violation of the bank's...
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. A party wishing to cite a memorandum decision in a brief or at oral argument should review Appellate Rule 214(d). MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT * I. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS Walter Kurka contacted the Alaska State Troopers to report items missing from his business office and job site. He told Trooper John Probst that a former employee had stolen several items from the business. Probst later criminally charged Kurka with...
OPINION CARPENETI, Chief Justice. I. INTRODUCTION Before 2009 the Alaska Board of Game employed a controversial scoring system in order to distribute permits to subsistence hunters in a popular caribou and moose hunting area between Anchorage and Fairbanks. In 2009, the Board amended its regulations to abolish the scoring system and replace it with two separate subsistence hunts: a community harvest hunt for groups and a separate hunt for individuals. A local tribe was subsequently granted...
OPINION FABE, Justice. I. INTRODUCTION Diana Albrecht brought a class-action lawsuit against Alaska Trustee, LLC, on behalf of a group of Alaska homeowners who had faced foreclosure on their homes. Alaska Trustee, acting as foreclosure trustee, had provided Albrecht and the other homeowners reinstatement quotes that included the costs of foreclosure. Albrecht maintained that the inclusion of foreclosure costs in her reinstatement quote violated her right to cure under a former version of AS...
OPINION FABE, Justice. I. INTRODUCTION Brian Ross has been absent from the State of Alaska since 1990, first as a student at the United States Naval Academy and later as a career Marine Corps officer. Despite his absence, Ross maintained Alaska residency and received a permanent fund dividend each year. In 1998 the Alaska Legislature amended the dividend qualifications to provide that anyone who was allowably absent for ten consecutive years would no longer be eligible for dividends....
OPINION CARPENETI, Chief Justice. I. INTRODUCTION A homeowner sought a declaratory judgment that foreclosure fees were not properly included in the reinstatement amount necessary to halt foreclosure proceedings under Alaska law. The superior court concluded that the foreclosure fees were properly included in the reinstatement amount. We agree and therefore affirm. II. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS Timothy Kuretich purchased his home in 2001 and financed this purchase through a promissory note...
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. A party wishing to cite a memorandum decision in a brief or at oral argument should review Appellate Rule 214(d). MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT * I. INTRODUCTION In 2009 a woman filed a petition for and was granted an ex parte domestic violence protective order against her ex-husband. The order contained a provision that the man "not telephone, contact or otherwise communicate directly or indirectly" with the woman. While...
OPINION FABE, Justice. I. INTRODUCTION The State of Alaska dismissed an employee based upon the charge that the employee submitted a falsified timesheet and claimed full pay for a week when she was not working. The employee argues that her dismissal violated the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing because a biased supervisor was involved with the termination decision, because the State's investigation was conducted unfairly, and because she was treated differently from similarly...
OPINION STOWERS, Justice. I. INTRODUCTION Sea Hawk Seafoods, Inc. sued the City of Valdez for damages after Valdez applied for a grant from the State of Alaska for funding to convert Sea Hawk's seafood processing facility into a fish meal plant but then declined to accept the $600,000 grant that the State conditionally awarded to Valdez. On pre-trial motions, the superior court dismissed Sea Hawk's claims for breach of contract, breach of an agreement to negotiate, and breach of a duty to...
OPINION FABE, Justice. I. INTRODUCTION Jeffrey Gorton and Stephanie Mann are the parents of a young son. When they divorced, the superior court awarded them a shared physical custody schedule and proceeded to calculate child support. This appeal arises from that calculation and from the amount the superior court allowed Jeffrey to deduct from his income for child support payments he was already making for his two children from a prior marriage. The superior court allowed Jeffrey to deduct...
OPINION WINFREE, Justice. I. INTRODUCTION A man was arrested for misdemeanor crimes after an altercation arising from a business dispute. He brought civil claims against a police officer and the officer's municipal employer based on the arrest. The superior court granted a motion for summary judgment and dismissed all claims against them. We affirm the superior court's decision because: (1) the police officer had probable cause to make a felony arrest, and, therefore, any perceived...
OPINION WINFREE, Justice. I. INTRODUCTION A State of Alaska employee was discharged. With union representation, the employee challenged his termination in grievance proceedings; he was unsuccessful. When he later filed suit for wrongful termination, the State subpoenaed the union representative to appear for a deposition with the union's grievance file. The superior court denied the employee's privilege-based request for a protective order. We granted the employee's petition for review to...
