Notice: 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. 

THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF ALASKA 

RAY T. BRIGGS, 

Appellant, 

v. 

CITY OF PALMER, ALASKA, a 

municipal corporation, 

Appellee. 

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) Supreme Court No. S-14969 

Superior Court No. 3PA-07-01480 CI 

O P I N I O N 

No. 6952 – September 12, 2014 

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Appeal from the Superior Court of the State of Alaska, Third 

Judicial District, Palmer, Vanessa White, Judge. 

Appearances: Ray T. Briggs, pro se, Palmer, Appellant. 

Michael R. Gatti and Mary B. Pinkel, Wohlforth, Brecht, 

Cartledge, & Brooking, Anchorage, for Appellee. 

Before: Fabe, Chief Justice, Winfree, Stowers, and Bolger, 

Justices. [Maassen, Justice, not participating.] 

BOLGER, Justice. 

I. INTRODUCTION 

The owner of two lots and a residence near the Palmer Municipal Airport 

brought an inverse condemnation claim against the City of Palmer, arguing that the 

airport operation diminished his property value. The superior court entered summary 

judgment for the City of Palmer because the property owner failed to submit any expert 

testimony regarding damages. We reverse the superior court’s decision because Alaska 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

law permits property owners to testify about their opinion of the property’s value before 

and after an alleged taking. 

II. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS 

Ray Briggs purchased two parcels of land from the Small Business 

Administration in 1989. Those parcels share a boundary with the Palmer Airport. In 

1997 Briggs complained to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough, alleging that Palmer had 

committed an unconstitutional taking of his property. Palmer subsequently annexed 

Briggs’s property into its corporate boundaries. In 2006 Briggs asked Palmer to buy his 

property, again alleging that Palmer had committed a taking. 

In June 2007 Briggs filed a superior court complaint claiming inverse 

condemnation. He alleged that the noise from the Palmer Airport substantially interfered 

with the use and enjoyment of his property to such a degree that it rendered his property 

uninhabitable and entitled him to just compensation. Briggs alleged that the noise and 

pollution created by planes landing or taking off from the Palmer Airport substantially 

diminished his property value. 

Palmer filed pretrial motions to exclude various types of evidence. In 

response to these motions, Briggs’s attorney stated that he would not be calling any 

expert witnesses to testify to the value of Briggs’s property. He asserted that Alaska law 

allows property owners to testify as to their opinion of the value of their property. 

In December 2011 the superior court heard oral argument on the pending 

motions. The court accepted Briggs’s late-filed witness list, which consisted of Briggs 

and his partner, Gilbert Shea. The court granted Palmer’s motion to exclude evidence 

of the Borough’s property tax assessment for Brigg’s property. In making this decision, 

the court expressed concern that Briggs might not be able to meet his “burden of proof” 

because Briggs and Shea lacked expertise in property valuation. 

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Palmer filed a motion for summary judgment in March 2012, arguing 

Briggs had no admissible evidence to prove his damages. Briggs’s attorney did not 

oppose Palmer’s motion. The superior court granted Palmer’s motion, stating that 

“[b]ecause proof of damages is an essential element of plaintiff’s inverse condemnation 

case, the court’s ruling results in dismissal of plaintiff’s case in its entirety.” 

Briggs filed motions seeking to proceed pro se and requesting oral 

argument; the superior court denied his motions and a final judgment in favor of Palmer 

was distributed on June 15, 2012. Briggs requested reconsideration and again sought to 

proceed pro se. Briggs’s attorney then moved to withdraw, and the court granted that 

motion. Briggs, now proceeding pro se, moved to set aside the judgment, but on 

November 7 the court denied his request. Briggs filed this appeal on December 3, over 

five months after final judgment was distributed and well beyond the 30 days allowed 

under the Appellate Rules. We accepted the late filing and now consider Briggs’s 

appeal. 

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW 

“We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, affirming the summary 

judgment when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the prevailing party is 

entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”1 

“When the admissibility of evidence turns on a question of fact, we review 

a trial court’s decision on admissibility for an abuse of discretion. However, when 

admissibility turns on a question of law, we use our independent judgment in reviewing 

the trial court’s ruling.”2 

1 Weimer v. Cont’l Car & Truck, LLC, 237 P.3d 610, 613 (Alaska 2010) 

(citing Alaska R. Civ. P. 56(c); Preblich v. Zorea, 996 P.2d 730, 733 (Alaska 2000)). 

2 Sowinski v. Walker, 198 P.3d 1134, 1159 (Alaska 2008) (citing Turner v. 

Municipality of Anchorage, 171 P.3d 180, 184 (Alaska 2007); Laidlaw Transit, Inc. v. 

Crouse ex rel. Crouse, 53 P.3d 1093, 1097 (Alaska 2002)). 

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“[W]e consider pro se pleadings liberally in an effort to determine what 

legal claims have been raised.”3 

IV.	 DISCUSSION 

A.	 Briggs’s Late Appeal Of The Superior Court’s Judgment May Be 

Accepted Because He Had An Obvious Misunderstanding Of Court 

Procedure. 

Alaska Appellate Rule 204(a)(1) provides that the appealing party must file 

a notice of appeal within 30 days of the distribution of the judgment. But the time limit 

for filing a notice of appeal is not jurisdictional, and the “requirements of that rule may 

be relaxed or dispensed with where a strict application would be unfair.”4 Alaska 

Appellate Rule 502(b)(2) specifically gives us discretion “to validate an act done after 

the expiration of the time period”5

 upon “a showing of good cause for an out-of-time 

application for extension of time.”6 And we may relax procedural requirements for pro 

se litigants in situations that do not involve gross neglect or bad faith.7 

In the present case, the superior court entered summary judgment on the 

issue of damages on March 26, 2012. The court distributed its final judgment on 

3 Toliver v. Alaska State Comm’n for Human Rights, 279 P.3d 619, 622 

(Alaska 2012) (citing Clemensen v. Providence Alaska Med. Ctr., 203 P.3d 1148, 1150 

(Alaska 2009)). 

4 Radich v. Fairbanks Builders, Inc., 399 P.2d 215, 217 (Alaska 1965); 

accord Gilbert v. State Farm Ins. Co., Mem. Op. & J No. 1178, 2004 WL 1701109, at 

*2 n.6 (Alaska July 28, 2004) (“Though State Farm is correct that technically this appeal 

is late under Alaska Appellate Rule 204(a)(1) and Alaska Civil Rule 77(k), given 

Gilbert’s pro se status and the plausible reasons she presents for the delay, we will 

consider the appeal.”). 

5	 Alaska R. App. P. 502(b)(2). 

6 Shea v. State, Dep’t of Admin., Div. of Ret. & Benefits, 204 P.3d 1023, 1028 

(Alaska 2009). 

7 Brandner v. Municipality of Anchorage, 327 P.3d 200, 203 (Alaska 2014). 

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June 15. Both before and after that date, Briggs filed several motions to proceed pro se, 

claiming that he was not being adequately represented by his attorney. On July 11 and 

August 22, Briggs also filed requests for reconsideration. After the superior court denied 

the motions for reconsideration, Briggs filed a motion to set aside the judgment, claiming 

that his counsel had not represented him adequately. The superior court’s order denying 

this motion was distributed on November 7. Briggs filed a notice of appeal on

 December 3, 2012. 

Palmer argues that this procedural history shows that Briggs’s appeal was 

not timely, and that neither Briggs’s requests for reconsideration nor his motion to set 

aside the judgment met the requirements to toll the running of time for filing an appeal.8 

But Briggs is a pro se litigant who seems to have misunderstood court procedure. The 

record shows Briggs repeatedly asked to represent himself after his attorney neglected 

to respond to the motion for summary judgment, and he also repeatedly sought relief 

from the superior court’s order granting summary judgment. Based on this showing, we 

are satisfied there is good cause to accept this appeal. 

B.	 Alaska Law Allows Property Owners To Testify About The 

Diminution In Value Of Their Property. 

Briggs argues he can provide credible testimony about the diminution in 

value of his property. In response, Palmer argues the superior court’s decision should 

be affirmed because an inverse condemnation case requires expert testimony to prove the 

value of damages. Palmer relies on Wernberg v. Matanuska Electric Ass’n, which states: 

“While the property owner is permitted to testify as to the market value of his land, it is 

clear that the amount of damage to property in trespass as in eminent domain cases is 

more appropriately the subject of expert testimony measured by an objective standard of 

damages.”9 But in our more recent decisions, we have reemphasized Wernberg’s 

8	 See Alaska R. App. P. 204(a)(3). 

9 494 P.2d 790, 795 (Alaska 1972). 

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prefatory statement that a “property owner is permitted to testify as to the market value 

of his land” and have clarified that this rule is based on the premise that an owner is 

informed about a property’s value, both before and after an event that diminished that 

value.

 In Fairbanks North Star Borough v. Lakeview Enterprises, Inc., an inverse 

condemnation case involving a neighboring landfill, we stated that “[a]n owner’s opinion 

on the topic of property value is normally admissible in Alaska.”10 Likewise, in Osborne 

v. Hurst, a case where a fire set on neighboring property destroyed a cabin, we held that 

lay testimony offered by the property owners about the value of their property before and 

after the fire was admissible because of the owners’ presumed knowledge about the value 

of their property.11 We reaffirmed this position more recently in Maddox v. Hardy when 

we stated that “Alaska allows lay testimony from the owner of property as to the value 

of the property before and after a damaging event.”12 

We conclude it was error to rule that Briggs could not testify about damages 

based on the value of his property before and after the alleged taking. 13 We thus reverse 

the superior court’s order granting summary judgment that relied on this ruling. 

10 897 P.2d 47, 55 n.14 (Alaska 1995) (citing Schymanski v. Conventz, 674 

P.2d 281, 286 (Alaska 1983)). 

11 947 P.2d 1356, 1361 (Alaska 1997). 

12 187 P.3d 486, 495 (Alaska 2008). 

13 Nothing in the record before us indicates that Shea is an owner of the 

property. As such this ruling does not affect the superior court’s order regarding his 

testimony. 

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V. CONCLUSION 

We REVERSE the superior court’s order granting summary judgment and 

REMAND for further proceedings.14 

14 In view of this disposition, we are not required to address any other issues 

raised in this appeal. But we note certain issues may arise on remand with respect to the 

court’s award of fees and costs. Palmer concedes that the superior court should not have 

enhanced the attorney’s fee award under Alaska Civil Rule 82. Palmer also concedes 

that the court should not have awarded expert witness costs under Alaska Civil Rule 

79(a) because the expert never testified at trial. And neither the court nor the parties 

considered whether the court’s fee and cost awards could be affected by the statute that 

governs constitutional claims. See AS 09.60.010(c)(2). Even if the court concluded 

Briggs had “sufficient economic incentive” to bring the suit, he would still be entitled to 

abatement of an award that “would inflict a substantial and undue hardship.” See AS 

09.60.010(e). 

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