Opinion ID: 1202753
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Point 3. Should the Commission be Estopped?

Text: In August of 1983, Bill Allen and Ed Dankworth, a VECO consultant and lobbyist, met with Theda Pittman, Executive Director of the Commission. The meeting was recorded. Allen and Dankworth said they were considering a payroll withholding plan and they wanted to know whether it would be exempt from the Act's reporting requirements. Pittman was asked whether VECO could bring a candidate to one of its oilfield camps and encourage employees to contribute to the candidate's campaign by authorizing a payroll deduction. Pittman indicated that such activity would be exempt. [10] Pittman knew that the opinions that she expressed were likely to be relied upon. On December 16th, Robert Ely, counsel for VECO, delivered various documents to Pittman, including the authorization for payroll deduction. Pittman agreed to have them reviewed to determine whether the reporting requirements of the Act applied to the plan which the documents depicted. Pittman, on behalf of the Commission, wrote two letters in response to this request. The first, delivered February 9, 1984, indicated that if employees specified the candidate recipient, rather than granting APAC any discretion in that transaction, the transaction was exempt. Similarly, the second letter, dated February 16, 1984, stated: if the recipient of the withheld funds is not specified by the employee, then a group would have been formed under AS 15.13 with the employer as the administrator/treasurer. It seems plain to me that the employer cannot first get authority only to withhold pay and later go back for permission to give the funds to particular candidates or political groups. The general elements of estoppel are (1) the assertion of a position by conduct or word, (2) reasonable reliance by another on the assertion, and (3) resulting prejudice. Jamison v. Consolidated Utilities, 576 P.2d 97, 102 (Alaska 1978). Even if these requirements are present, an estoppel against the government will not be invoked if the public interest would be significantly prejudiced. Municipality of Anchorage v. Schneider, 685 P.2d 94, 97 (Alaska 1984). VECO argues that the Commission should be estopped from finding that each employer corporation and its contributing employees constituted a group. It argues that it reasonably relied on Pittman's statement at the August 11, 1983 meeting that it was not group activity for an employer to encourage employees to contribute to a particular political candidate. The state counters that the August meeting was brief and Pittman's response was informal and vague. Thus, reliance on her response could not be regarded as reasonable. In our view, Pittman's opinion expressed during the August meeting could reasonably have been relied on by VECO in crafting its employee withholding plan. Dankworth stressed the importance of his question, and Pittman's answer, though informal, was clear. The means of employer participation in the selection of the recipient of the employee's funds was different in the question on which Pittman commented than in the actual plan. However, significant employer participation in the selection of the recipient was present in both the question and the actual plan. Such participation was, if anything, greater in the hypothetical plan. Further, no regulations or Commission decisions then existed which would cast doubt on either the substance or the form of Pittman's opinion, or the extent to which VECO could rely on it. [11] The period during which VECO could reasonably rely on Pittman's answer terminated with her letters of February, 1984. These clearly indicated that what VECO had done was group activity, because the Political Action Committee, rather than the employee, selected the recipient. VECO's first reports were due January 16, 1984. The next were not due until thirty days before the August 1984 primary election. AS 15.13.120(a)(1). VECO's reasonable reliance thus served to excuse only the late filing of the first reports and as to them it served only for the time reasonably needed to prepare and file the reports after receiving Pittman's February letters. VECO argues that its reliance on Pittman's August, 1983 statement excuses it from ever filing any reports relating to the payroll withholding plan. This assumes that the prejudice which VECO suffered is inherent in the obligation to report, rather than in the penalties which were imposed because of not reporting. We disagree. The reporting requirements imposed by the Act on groups are not particularly burdensome and neither VECO nor its employees have demonstrated a protected interest in the confidentiality of their political contributions. [12] Thus, VECO in reliance on Pittman's answer suffered legally cognizable prejudice only by being fined for late filing of the first reports. It did not, as in some other government estoppel cases, take action which could not be remedied at all or without great expense. [13]