Opinion ID: 2459972
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The superior court is obligated to inform litigants of the proper procedure for opposing a motion for summary judgment.

Text: Johns filed for partial summary judgment on the issue of wage loss on December 8, 2008. The motion was accompanied by a Notice of Motion to Azimi, as required under Alaska Rule of Civil Procedure 5(g)(2). [25] The notice stated that the recipient had the right to file a written opposition and provided information on how to serve an opposition. At the December 29 pretrial conference, Azimi had not filed an opposition to Johns's motion, though he had provided Johns's attorney with the trip logs he intended to use to substantiate his claim for lost wages. The court gave Azimi until the following day to file a written opposition, explaining, You need to read what he's written and respond to the arguments that he's making and if you have any additional arguments, you can make those. Azimi submitted an opposition in which he reiterated that the only available data on his income was in the trip sheets. Because Azimi did file a pleading, he falls under the stricter requirements articulated in Breck rather than those in Bauman, and the court was obligated to inform him of the proper procedure for the action he ... [was] attempting to accomplish. [26] Azimi's failure to include affidavits with his opposition to Johns's summary judgment motion is the type of defect that the court is obligated to point out to a pro se litigant. This was the situation in Breck, where the plaintiff opposed the defendants' motion for summary judgment but did not attach previously submitted evidence in the form of affidavits. [27] There, we held that Breck should have been advised of the necessity of submitting affidavits to preclude summary judgment. [28] Here, the superior court acknowledged its obligations under Breck when it noted, in the context of a question about the appropriateness of denying a continuance, [i]f this were to come to me on summary judgment where the plaintiff is not represented by counsel, before I could grant summary judgment I would have to warn him and advise him how to accomplish what it is that he needs to do. The superior court did explain briefly what Azimi needed to do to file a written opposition, but did not mention the necessity of submitting affidavits or serving the opposition on opposing counsel. The court's duty to correct Azimi was mitigated by the notice of motion Azimi received from Johns, which referred to Civil Rule 77; we have held that information provided by the opposing party may be considered in evaluating whether a pro se litigant has received adequate notice of procedural requirements. [29] Here the references in the notice of motion were not explicit enough to meet the standard set out in Breck regarding the court's responsibility.