Opinion ID: 2524934
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Superior Court Properly Denied Alvarez's Petition for Rehearing.

Text: After the superior court ruled against Alvarez on the merits of her dispute on July 23, 1998, Alvarez submitted a motion for rehearing to the superior court, on August 24, 1998. However, on September 6, 1998, the superior court denied Alvarez's motion for rehearing, ruling that it was untimely under Appellate Rule 506. Alvarez appeals this ruling. Appellate Rule 506 controls here because the superior court acted as an intermediate appellate court by reviewing the Board's decision. [30] Appellate Rule 506(b) requires that any petition for rehearing must be filed within ten days after the date of notice of the opinion or other decision. The date of notice is defined by Alaska Civil Rule 58.1(c)(2) as the date shown in the clerk's certificate of distribution on the written order. The problem in this appeal is that the clerk's certificate of distribution on the July 23, 1998 order was undated, and thus failed to specify the date of notice. Alvarez therefore claims that the ten-day period mandated by Appellate Rule 506(b) never started to run. The Borough argues that this clerical error alone should not be sufficient to excuse the untimely petition, absent actual evidence that distribution was delayed. Instead, the Borough suggests that the date of the July 23, 1998 order be used as the date of notice, and that therefore the petition for rehearing was due ten days after July 23. The superior court agreed with the Borough, and held that the petition was due on or about August 3, asserting that the ten-day period began to run on the date of distribution. The superior court apparently assumed that the date of distribution was on or about July 23. We need not resolve this dispute, because even if the petition for rehearing were deemed timely, earlier parts of this opinion establish that Alvarez could not prevail on either of the arguments made in her petition for rehearing. In that petition, Alvarez made two arguments: (1) the superior court failed to consider Ketchikan Gateway Borough Code § 45.11.105(9), which required the Board to make factual findings; and (2) material was wrongly excluded from the record on appeal. We have already fully considered both of these issues in this opinionwe held that the motion to supplement the record on appeal was properly denied and that the Board's failure to issue factual findings was harmless error. Therefore, it is irrelevant whether or not the petition for rehearing was timely.