Opinion ID: 1245199
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Standing Ruling

Text: Our cases have identified two types of standing: interest-injury and taxpayer-citizen. Trustees for Alaska v. State, 736 P.2d 324, 327 (Alaska 1987), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1032, 108 S.Ct. 2013, 180 L.Ed.2d 601 (1988). The trial court concluded that Kleven failed to establish standing to pursue his second lawsuit under either theory. [13] We agree. Under the interest-injury approach, a party asserting standing [must demonstrate] a sufficient `personal stake' in the outcome of the controversy to ensure the requisite adversity. Hoblit v. Commissioner of Natural Resources, 678 P.2d 1337, 1340 (Alaska 1984). Kleven argues that he has interest-injury standing because he continues to assert damage claims with respect to grievances concerning binding arbitration and because he is seeking reinstatement to his former position and would therefore be subject to the rules and conditions he seeks to have reviewed. [At. 34-35] The problem with this argument is that Kleven was not asserting a claim for constructive discharge in his second lawsuit. The trial court noted this in making its ruling. The issue then is whether an employee who starts a grievance process and subsequently resigns has standing to force the employer to continue with the process and remedy problems presumably for the benefit of those employees who remain. Even under our liberal standing rules, we do not believe Kleven has established a sufficient personal stake in the case to gain standing under an interest-injury analysis. As the trial court noted, because Kleven is no longer employed by YKSD, he is no longer subject to the contested grievance procedures, nor is he threatened by the alleged safety violations. [14] Compare Rutter v. State, 668 P.2d 1343, 1346 (Alaska 1983) (holding that commercial fisherman had standing to challenge state's fishing permit policy because his ability to fish would be directly impacted by the number of permits granted); with Bowers Office Prod. v. University of Alaska, 755 P.2d 1095, 1098 (Alaska 1988) (holding that bidder did not have standing to challenge university bid review practices where bidder had abandoned claim for damages arising out of these practices and was currently only seeking declaratory relief). Taxpayer-citizen status is a sufficient basis to challenge allegedly illegal governmental conduct when the issues raised are of significant public concern and when the taxpayer-plaintiff is a suitable advocate of the issues involved in the lawsuit. See Trustees for Alaska, 736 P.2d at 329; State v. Lewis, 559 P.2d 630, 635 (Alaska 1977), cert. denied, 432 U.S. 901, 97 S.Ct. 2943, 53 L.Ed.2d 1073 (1977). In Trustees for Alaska, we noted that standing may properly be denied to a taxpayer-plaintiff where there is a plaintiff more directly affected by the challenged conduct in question who has or is likely to bring suit. Trustees for Alaska, 736 P.2d at 329. Because YKSD's remaining employees are certainly in better position to raise the grievances Kleven cites and because we have no reason to believe that current YKSD employees would be indisposed to press legitimate grievances, we agree with the trial court that Kleven has failed to establish citizen-taxpayer standing. Accordingly, we hold that Kleven's second lawsuit was properly dismissed for lack of standing. We also uphold the trial court's partial attorneys' fee award. See Alaska Civil Rule 82. The court awarded YKSD $2,700.00 in cost and fees which represented only about fifty percent of YKSD's total fees for the second lawsuit. We have previously upheld awards representing well over fifty percent of a prevailing party's actual fees and therefore find no abuse of discretion in this case. See, e.g., Steenmeyer Corp. v. Mortenson-Neal, 731 P.2d 1221, 1226-27 (Alaska 1987) (holding that a Civil Rule 82 award of 75 percent of actual fees was not manifestly unreasonable). The judgment in the first lawsuit is REVERSED and the case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. The judgment in the second lawsuit is AFFIRMED.