Summary Judgment in Alaska

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal,Alaska
• Publication year: 2015
• Citation: Vol. 32

§ 32 Alaska L. Rev. 181. SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN ALASKA

Alaska Law Review
Volume 32, No. 1, June 2015
Cited: 32 Alaska L. Rev. 181

SUMMARY JUDGMENT IN ALASKA

Grady R. Campion ^[*]

Abstract

In modern civil litigation, disputes rarely proceed to trial. Summary judgment has evolved in state and federal courts across the country as a common mechanism for dispute resolution without trial. Alaska courts have largely refused to follow this trend. Instead, obtaining summary judgment in Alaska represents a nearly impossible challenge. Alaska's heightened summary judgment standard reflects a past era-one in which advocacy occurred in a courtroom before a jury and not in chambers on paper. This Note analyzes the evolution of summary judgment in federal courts and in Alaska and discusses three procedural mechanisms affecting summary judgment in Alaska. After assessing arguments for and against modernizing Alaska's summary judgment standard, this Note concludes with a recommendation: Alaska should adopt the reasonable jury summary judgment standard.

INTRODUCTION

Despite their textual similarities, winning a motion for summary judgment in Alaska state court is considerably more difficult than in federal court. In 1986, the United States Supreme Court decided three cases that modernized the federal summary judgment standard by incorporating the parties' evidentiary burdens at trial to determine whether a genuine issue of material fact exists. ^[1] By doing so, the Supreme Court recast summary judgment analysis to include not only whether a genuine issue of material fact exists, but also whether only the trier of fact may resolve the issue. ^[2] The moving party would be entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law only if the trier of fact could come to one conclusion in light of the contested factual issues. ^[3]

The text of the federal and Alaska summary judgment rules are nearly identical. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56, courts "shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." ^[4] Similarly, Alaska's summary judgment rule states that "[j]udgment shall be rendered forthwith" upon a showing "that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that any party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." ^[5] However, the Alaska supreme court has repeatedly declined to adopt the modern federal standard for determining genuine issues of material fact for summary judgment purposes. ^[6] The Alaska summary judgment standard does not consider evidentiary burdens and does not ask how the trier of fact would determine any disputed issue. ^[7] This interpretive distinction carries important implications for the Alaska court system, its litigants, and the efficient administration of justice.

Much like the pre-1986 federal summary judgment standard, ^[8] Alaska courts tend to disfavor treating summary judgment motions as a procedural shortcut. This exceedingly low barrier to entry undermines the utility of summary judgment as an effective procedural tool for civil practitioners and a screening device for courts. As one Alaska trial judge jokingly explained: "Under our state's summary judgment rule, if there is so much as a shadow of a whisper of a hint of a contested issue of fact, then we must deny summary judgment." ^[9]

Parts I and II of this Note analyze the distinctions between the federal and Alaskan summary judgment standards, respectively. Part III discusses three procedural aspects of Alaska law that relate to the state summary judgment standard: notice pleading, directed verdict, and Alaska's "English Rule" fee shifting. In Part IV, this Note weighs arguments for and against changing the Alaska summary judgment standard and concludes with the recommendation that Alaska should adopt the federal reasonable jury standard for summary judgment.

I. THE FEDERAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT STANDARD

In a series of cases now known as the Celotex trilogy, the U.S. Supreme Court significantly changed what constitutes a genuine dispute of material fact for the purposes of summary judgment. This change modernized the summary judgment standard to mirror its procedural relative-directed verdict-by considering the evidentiary burdens that the movant and nonmovant will bear at trial. ^[10]

To understand the policies underlying the federal summary judgment doctrine, it is helpful to first review the historic development of summary judgment as a procedural tool. The origins of summary judgment can be traced back to the 1855 Summary Procedure on Bills of Exchange Act in England, which granted courts power to issue summary decisions in collections actions brought by plaintiffs on bills of exchange and promissory notes. ^[11] The bill's goal was "expedition and economy in obtaining a judgment where the circumstances of the case lent themselves to a shortened procedure." ^[12] In 1938, the Supreme Court adopted Rule 56, along with the rest of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, pursuant to the Rules Enabling Act of 1934. ^[13] However, as summary judgment continued to emerge as a procedural tool, federal courts were generally reluctant to use summary judgment out of a concern that the nonmoving party would face judgment without an opportunity to present his case in court. ^[14] This concern rings true in many states today, including Alaska. ^[15]

As a result, pre-1986 summary judgment rulings required that the movant present evidence negating the nonmovant's case in order to obtain summary judgment. ^[16] In Adickes v. S.H. Kress and Co., ^[17] the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the lower court's grant of summary judgment to the defendant because the moving defendant had failed to "foreclose the possibility" that the jury could infer facts sufficient for the nonmovant to prove its case. ^[18] Under Adickes, the movant's Rule 56 burden required disproving the nonmovant's case by producing affirmative evidence of the nonexistence of any material factual issue. ^[19] In a case where the movant bears no burden of proof at trial, as in Adickes, the pre-1986 summary judgment standard imposed an artificially high barrier on the movant. ^[20]

Sixteen years later in 1986, the Supreme Court recast the standard set forth in Adickes . In Celotex Corp v. Catrett, ^[21] the Supreme Court addressed the standard for summary judgment in the context of an asbestos case. ^[22] Plaintiff's claim, that the defendant's products contained asbestos and exposure to that asbestos caused the death of her husband, would have been virtually immune to defendant's summary judgment under Adickes analysis. ^[23] The defendant-movant would have been required to foreclose the possibility of a verdict for the plaintiff at trial- that is, the defendant would have needed to prove the decedent's nonexposure to defendant's asbestos-containing products at any point in the decedent's life. ^[24]

Without expressly overruling Adickes, the Supreme Court held that Rule 56(c) requires the entry of summary judgment against a nonmovant "who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of any element essential to [the nonmovant's] case, and on which [the nonmovant] will bear the burden of proof at trial." ^[25] In this circumstance, a "complete failure of proof concerning an essential element" of the nonmovant's case necessarily means that no genuine issue of material fact exists, rendering any other disputed facts immaterial. ^[26] Thus, the standard for granting summary judgment "mirrors the standard for a directed verdict under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a)." ^[27]

The Court's decision in Celotex, however, raised more questions about the federal summary judgment standard than it answered. For one, a five-vote majority issued the Celotex opinion, with then-Associate Justice Rehnquist writing for four Justices and Justice White concurring. ^[28] These opinions included three divergent views on the burden of production required of the nonmovant to sufficiently demonstrate the existence of disputed facts. ^[29] Justice Rehnquist characterized this burden as "informing" the court of the absence of disputed facts. ^[30] Justice White required more in his concurrence, reasoning that "a conclusory assertion that the [nonmovant] has no evidence to prove his case" is not enough to move for summary judgment. ^[31] Justice Brennan concluded in dissent that the movant without the burden of proof at trial could satisfy his burden of production for summary judgment either by presenting evidence negating an essential element of the nonmovant's claim, or by affirmatively showing that there is no evidence in the record to support a judgment for the nonmovant. ^[32] By shifting the requirements of summary judgment to correspond with the party's trial burdens and requiring nonmovants to produce evidence of the full range of disputed facts, the Celotex majority made summary judgment a defendant's motion.

Celotex also did not answer the question of how judges determine sufficiency and admissibility of the evidence presented at summary judgment in light of the reordered burdens facing the movant and nonmovant at summary judgment. ^[33] Considered in light of Celotex, both Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. ^[34] and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp. ^[35] enlarged the trial judge's discretionary authority by allowing for evidentiary...