OPINION MAASSEN , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION A woman was seriously injured when she slipped and fell on ice in a hotel parking lot. Medicare covered her medical expenses, settling the providers' bills by paying less than one-fifth of the amounts billed. When the woman later sued the hotel for negligence, the hotel sought to bar her from introducing her original medical bills as evidence of her damages, arguing that only the amount Medicare actually paid was relevant and admissible. The...
OPINION BOLGER , Chief Justice . I. INTRODUCTION A divorced mother had sole legal and physical custody of her two daughters. Their father sought a protective order against the mother and a modification of custody after she repeatedly hit the older daughter with a belt. The superior court found that the mother's actions did not trigger the presumption against custody under AS 25.24.150(g). It ordered that she retain legal and physical custody, subject only to a limited protective order,...
OPINION BOLGER , Chief Justice . I. INTRODUCTION Maxim Healthcare Services and its Alaska office manager, Alaina Adkins, made misrepresentations while discharging Jesse Collens from Maxim's care, in violation of the company's own policies and procedures. Collens sued them for breach of contract, fraudulent misrepresentation, unfair and deceptive acts and practices under Alaska's Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Act (UTPA), 1 and intentional infliction of emotional distress (...
OPINION MAASSEN , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION The parties entered into a construction subcontract that contained a broad dispute resolution provision. When disputes arose, the parties engaged in mediation as their subcontract required, reaching a settlement agreement by which they each "absolutely release[d] the other of and from any and all claims, demands and obligations of any kind arising from [the subcontract]." The settlement agreement, unlike the subcontract, contained no dispute...
OPINION WINFREE , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION Homeowners had trees removed from a municipal right-of-way across the road from their home, only obtaining a required permit several months later. Neighbors, whose property abutted the right-of-way and whose house had been behind the removed trees, sued the homeowners and the tree-removal company for damages. 1 The superior court granted summary judgment to the homeowners and the tree-removal company, concluding that the municipality's...
OPINION CARNEY , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION We are again called upon to determine whether restrictions placed upon Alaska's Medicaid funding of abortions violate the Alaska Constitution. A 2014 statute and 2013 regulation re-define which abortions qualify as "medically necessary" for the purposes of Medicaid funding. The statute defines medically necessary abortions as those that "must be performed to avoid a threat of serious risk to the life or physical health of a woman from...
OPINION BOLGER , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION Stacey Graham pleaded guilty to second-degree murder after striking and killing two pedestrians while driving intoxicated. He is now being sued by the victims' families. Graham, who is currently appealing his sentence, argues that he may assert the privilege against self-incrimination in response to the families' discovery requests based on (1) his sentence appeal and (2) the possibility that he might file an application for post-conviction...
OPINION BOLGER , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION Alaska's medical peer review privilege statute, AS 18.23.030, protects discovery of data, information, proceedings, and records of medical peer review organizations, but it does not protect a witness's personal knowledge and observations or materials originating outside the medical peer review process. A hospital invoked the privilege in two separate actions, one involving a wrongful death suit against a physician at the hospital and the other...
OPINION WINFREE , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION A man appeals a long-term domestic violence protective order entered against him for stalking his ex-wife. He argues that the superior court: (1) abused its discretion and violated his due process rights in its treatment of his ten-year-old son's proposed testimony; (2) violated the doctrine of ripeness by warning that future conduct could justify a stalking finding; (3) violated the doctrine of res judicata by reconsidering a claim that it...
OPINION CARNEY , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION A woman sued her former employer for unpaid compensation, naming the company and both of its owners as defendants. One of the owners died while the suit was pending, and the former employee substituted the owner's estate in the proceedings. Judgment was eventually entered in favor of the former employee. A year later the deceased owner's widow moved for relief from the judgment as the sole beneficiary of his estate, arguing that neither her...
OPINION WINFREE , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION We granted this petition for review to consider how the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) — establishing medical privacy standards with specific exceptions — affected our personal injury case law allowing a defendant ex parte contact with a plaintiff's doctors as a method of informal discovery. We requested that the parties specifically brief whether the federal law preempted our case law, or, if not,...
OPINION BOLGER , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION The superior court issued a decree divorcing Terrace L. Solomon and Wendy D. Barnes (formerly Solomon) and reserving custody of the parties' children to be decided at a later trial. Before the custody trial could be held, Terrace was arrested and held in a United States Army prison outside Alaska. The superior court repeatedly continued the custody trial to allow Terrace's counsel to get in contact with Terrace and arrange for his telephonic...
OPINION STOWERS , Chief Justice . I. INTRODUCTION While sitting on his motorcycle at a stop light, Chad Hahn was thrown backwards when Franklin Townsend's car failed to stop in time and struck the motorcycle. During settlement negotiations in the tort suit that followed, Hahn sought payment under Townsend's underinsured motorist (UIM) insurance policy. Hahn argued that he was an insured occupant of Townsend's car because he landed on the car after the impact and that Townsend's...
OPINION BOLGER , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION A family rushed to the scene of a car accident, only to discover that it had been caused by a family member, who soon died from her traumatic injuries. The family brought a bystander claim against the deceased family member's estate for negligent infliction of emotional distress, making the novel argument that, even though the family member was also the tortfeasor, the family could recover for its resulting emotional distress. The superior court...
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. A party wishing to cite such a decision in a brief or at oral argument should review Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d). MEMORANDUM OPINION ANDJUDGMENT * I. INTRODUCTION The estate of a man who drowned on a rafting trip challenged the validity of the pre-trip liability release. The superior court granted summary judgment in favor of the rafting company. Because there were no genuine issues of material fact and the release was...
OPINION BOLGER , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION A borrower defaulted on a loan, leading to a non-judicial foreclosure of a deed of trust on his property. He filed suit against the property's new owner and the credit union that initiated the foreclosure, arguing the foreclosure and the transactions preceding it were fraudulent and invalid. The superior court granted summary judgment for the defendants. We affirm the superior court's conclusion that the borrower failed to demonstrate an issue...
OPINION MAASSEN , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION Unmarried parents separated and asked the superior court for a custody and child support order. The father was receiving military disability payments but was otherwise unemployed. In calculating his child support liability, the superior court imputed income to him of $40,000 in addition to his military disability payments. The court also apparently rejected the father's request to deduct business losses, including depreciation, incurred by his...
OPINION MAASSEN , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION A city evicted commercial tenants from city-owned land and was granted a money judgment against them for unpaid rent and sales taxes. The tenants left behind various improvements, as well as items of personal property related to their operation of a marine fueling facility on the land. The city pursued collection of its money judgment for several years before suspending its efforts; about eight years later it resumed its attempts to collect. The...
Memorandum decisions of this court do not create legal precedent. A party wishing to cite such a decision in a brief or at oral argument should review Alaska Appellate Rule 214(d). MEMORANDUM OPINION AND JUDGMENT * I. INTRODUCTION The personal representative of Wayne Colyer Fields's estate challenges an October 2015 superior court order providing for the closure of the estate. The order directed that certain property was to be distributed to Fields's children and that the personal...
OPINION MAASSEN , Justice . I. INTRODUCTION A mother and son dispute ownership of a house in Ketchikan. The son contends that his mother gave him the property following her husband's death, and that he spent years repairing and renovating it on the understanding that it was his. His mother argues that she still owns it. She contends that she agreed to transfer title only if her son repaired the property and paid off the mortgage, which he failed to do. Following a bench trial on the son'...
