Opinion ID: 2546657
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Whether it was reversible error to dismiss the federal racial discrimination claim on summary judgment

Text: In granting summary judgment to the state on the federal equal protection claim asserted in plaintiffs' third cause of action, the superior court concluded that the plaintiffs have not offered evidence that any disparate impact of the admittedly facially-neutral standards for allocating certified police officers arises from an actual present intent to discriminate against Alaska Natives. Plaintiffs argue on appeal that they submitted abundant, uncontradicted evidence proving precisely to the contrary. They contend that, given the uncontradicted record and undisputed facts, we should rule as a matter of law for the plaintiffs on this claim. The state denies any intent to discriminate against Alaska Natives in allocating law enforcement services. It contends that the plaintiffs conceded more than once that state officials bore no discriminatory intent and were operating with the best of intentions. To be entitled to summary judgment, a movant must demonstrate that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. [61] Plaintiffs' contention that the evidence supporting this claim is undisputed or uncontradicted is unwarranted. Most of the evidence they rely on was also offered at trial to support their state law claim that the state intentionally discriminates against Alaska Natives in allocating law enforcement services. Plaintiffs primarily rely on what they say is evidence of past discriminatory intent and the adoption or establishment of a system of allocating law enforcement services that discriminates based on race. But as the superior court observed, the contentions of past discrimination and the adoption or establishment of a discriminatory system form the basis for the plaintiffs' second cause of actiontheir Fordice -based claim that the state intentionally adopted or established a prior de jure race-based system for allocating law enforcement services and continues to operate that allegedly race-based dual system. Plaintiffs proceeded to trial on that cause of action, and lost, so it cannot be said that the evidence of historical discriminatory intent is undisputed. Plaintiffs' claim necessarily rests on the theory that the state relied on the availability of VPOs and VPSOs in deciding where to station troopers. They assume that if there were no VPOs or VPSOs, the state would allocate trooper services more favorably to Alaska Native villages. But if the allocation of trooper services is not discriminatory in the first place, the Equal Protection Clause would not entitle plaintiffs to a more favorable allocation of trooper services. There was evidence at trial that in allocating trooper services, the state did not rely on the availability of VPOs or VPSOs to alter trooper assignments. The superior court found that the VPO and VPSO programs were supplements to, rather than substitutes for, trooper services. Likewise, plaintiffs' contention that there is a dual system of law enforcement assumes that the state treats VPOs and VPSOs as alternatives to troopers. But credible evidence to the contrary supports the trial court's post-trial findings that those programs supplement the troopers and are not meant to be substitutes for trooper services. Plaintiffs' contentions ultimately also turn on evidence that the response times of troopers to incidents in Native villages, most of which are not accessible to the troopers by road from their hub posts, are greater than in locations on the road system. But those differences would not be legally significant for equal protection purposes unless the villages are similarly situated to on-road communities. The superior court's post-trial decision found that they are not. We therefore reject plaintiffs' contention that the evidence was so compelling that they were entitled to judgment as a matter of law on this federal claim. We recognize that when summary judgment was granted to the state on this claim, some evidence potentially supported the dismissed claim. Glenn Godfrey, then Director of the Division of Alaska State Troopers, stated in an affidavit that decisions about trooper location are not and have never been made because of the racial, ethnic or cultural make-up of the community. But he also explained that trooper allocation decisions are based on the need for the position, the funding available to the division, the availability of other law enforcement services, the geographic location and transportation and communication services in communities, and the ability of positions to be mobile and flexible so as to provide assistance to other areas of the state if needed. (Emphasis added.) The emphasized reference could arguably be read in isolation, at least at the summary judgment stage, to imply that VPSOs were treated as providing substitute law enforcement services in Native villages and that the state took VPSO availability into account when it allocated trooper law enforcement services. The frailty of the probative value of this isolated reference would normally render it insufficient to create a genuine factual dispute, but given the extreme difficulty of proving discriminatory intent [62] it would arguably be sufficient in this case. Nonetheless, the superior court's rejection of the identical state racial discrimination claim after trial makes it unnecessary to decide whether it was error to grant summary judgment to the state on the federal claim asserted in the third cause of action. The Alaska Constitution's guarantee of equal protection is at least as protective as the Federal Constitution's corresponding guarantee. [63] The superior court's rejection of plaintiffs' state claim after a trial on the merits establishes the harmlessness of any possible error in granting summary judgment to the state on the identical federal claim. [64] Plaintiffs do not contend that they might have offered any additional evidence had the federal claim gone to trial, or that a different standard would have permitted them to succeed on their federal claim at trial even though they did not prevail on their state claim. Granting summary judgment on that claim therefore did not prejudice plaintiffs. [65]