Court Opinion

ID: 9797565
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 04:24:13.861466+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:57:12.612576
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
dissenting in part.
In my dissenting opinion in State of Alaska, Department of Corrections v. Cowles, I concluded that tort liability should not be imposed on parole officers or the State for negligent supervision of parolees.1 The main premise of the case holding to the contrary, Division of Corrections v. Neakok-that parole officers have a substantial ability to control the conduct of parolees2 — has been shown in subsequent years to be false and therefore Neakok should be overruled. I would thus reverse the superior court’s denial of the State’s motion for summary judgment concerning the duty issue and remand for an entry of judgment in favor of the State.
That result would moot the additional questions addressed in today’s opinion as to whether the cap on noneconomic damages in AS 09.17.010 is constitutional and whether the rape victim in this case is entitled to a separate cap for each penetration or whether the single-incident limitation for multiple injuries should apply. But since these issues are not mooted, I address them as well. I agree with the opinion of the court that the damages cap is constitutional for the reasons expressed by the court. But I do not agree that the victim in this ease is entitled to multiple caps. In my view, the rape was a “single incident” resulting in multiple injuries and thus under AS 09.17.010(d) the resulting injuries are subject to one cap. I develop this point in the paragraphs that follow.
Alaska Statute 09.17.010 caps noneconomic losses at the greater of $400,000 or the injured person’s life expectancy multiplied by $8,000, except in cases of severe permanent physical impairment or severe disfigurement. The cap is triggered by “a single injury or *386death,” but multiple injuries sustained by one person as a result of a single incident are counted as a single injury. Such injuries are thus subject to a single cap rather than multiple caps.3 The question in this case is, given that each penetration inflicted on the victim of the rape in this case is a separate injury, whether each injury was “sustained ... as a result of a single incident” within the meaning of AS 09.17.010(d).
The term “single incident” should be interpreted in a manner that is consistent with its common usage.4 In common usage, a rape or sexual assault occurring in a brief period of time is referred to as an “incident” without regard to the details of the assault. This usage is well illustrated by the opinion of the court of appeals in Yearly v. State.5 The defendant there had raped a woman at a supermarket.6 In the process he had engaged in several types of penetrations.7 The court referred to this assault as “the Carrs Supermarket incident.”8 Similarly, the same defendant had engaged in another mul-ti-crime sexual assault near a bike path at Goose Lake.9 The court of appeals described this assault as “the Goose Lake incident.”10
The same usage is reflected in another single incident, multiple-penetration case of the court of appeals, Erickson v. State.11 There the court stated:
In the present case, the jury found that Erickson had engaged in four distinct types of sexual penetration with the victim. To paraphrase Dunlop, “[wjhen several [distinct types of sexual penetration] occur in the course of a single incident, the offense prohibited by the statute has been violated several times over.”[12]
In Kodiak Island Borough v. Roe a mentally disabled resident of a residential facility was sexually assaulted by two employees of the facility.13 There were four separate assaults, two by each employee, each on different days and in different locations in the facility.14 We referred to each event as an “incident of assault.”15 We employed the same usage in referring to a Montana case where there had been three rapes of a patient on three separate occasions, describing *387that ease as “holding each incident of rape was a separate wrongful act.”16
The usage reflected by these eases applies here. Just as the multi-crime bike path sexual assault in Yearty was described as an “incident,” and just as the multi-penetration assault in Erickson was described as a “single incident,” the rape that took place in this ease is most readily described in the same way.
This interpretation is also consistent with the purpose of the damage cap statute. The statute is meant to limit damage awards in order to lower, or at least control, insurance premiums.17 This purpose is furthered by employing the common-usage meaning reflected in the above cases because the resulting noneconomic injuries suffered by a victim are limited to a single cap. On the other hand, subdividing a sexual assault into discrete penetrations runs counter to the purpose of the statute by effectively taking the damage cap out of play.
Apart from the general usage of the word “incident” and the purpose of the statute, how else could one determine whether a series of acts consist of a single incident or two or more separate incidents? A sensible approach is to use the same test used to determine whether a set of facts constitutes a single transaction or occurrence, or more than one. This is the test that we use when determining whether a counterclaim is compulsory and thus must be asserted in response to a complaint, and when determining whether a cause of action has been impermis-sibly split. “Incident” and “occurrence” are synonyms,18 and our endeavor here is much like what we try to do when we use the same transaction or occurrence test: determine what combinations of facts should be tried together, if they are tried at all.
The “same transaction” or “occurrence” test consists of a list of factors that are useful in determining whether various claims arise from the same transaction or occurrence. These factors “include whether the facts are related in time, space, origin, or motivation; whether they form a convenient trial unit; and whether their treatment as a unit conforms to the parties’ expectations or business understanding or usage.”19
These factors indicate that the rape that occurred in this case is one transaction or occurrence rather than more than one. Most importantly the facts here are closely related in time, space, origin, and motivation. Further, they would form a convenient trial unit. As to the parties’ expectations or usage, I think it would be unprecedented to conduct separate trials for each type of penetration that took place in the course of a sexual assault. So these factors also point to the conclusion that what we have here is a single transaction or occurrence. Based on all these factors, it seems clear that a victim of a multiple-penetration rape could not try a civil case based on a complaint limited to only one penetration and then subsequently bring a new case based on a second penetration. Doing so would run afoul of the rule prohibiting splitting a cause of action. It follows that each penetration is part of the same transaction or occurrence and, by analogy, also a part of a single incident.
The fact that the criminal law may count each type of penetration as a separate crime seems to me to be irrelevant. Alaska Statute 09.17.010 applies to civil not criminal cases. There is no analogous statute or legal principle in criminal law that mandates that multiple affronts sustained by one person as a result of a single incident must be considered a single crime.20 The purposes of the crimi*388nal law, briefly stated, are to condemn, punish, and deter wrongful conduct.21 These purposes are unrelated to the purposes of AS 09.17.010 — limiting tort recoveries for non-economic losses in order to control the cost of liability insurance.
In summary, the brutal act that gave rise to this case was a single incident within the common usage of that term. This usage controls the meaning of AS 09.17.010(d) and is consistent with its purposes, whereas a narrower usage would not be. The test we use to define the synonymous word “occurrence” is also relevant to the meaning of “incident” here and reveals that the several penetrations constitute one incident. Again, it seems beyond question that the plaintiff here would not be able to bring a lawsuit based on one penetration and then later sue separately on another penetration. The fact that the several penetrations that occurred were separate crimes is irrelevant because no principle similar to the “single incident” limitation of AS 09.17.010(d) applies in criminal law, and the criminal law rule permitting the imposition of separate convictions for each penetration in a sexual assault has purposes that are unrelated to the purposes of AS 09.17.010(d).
For these reasons I would uphold the determination of the superior court that the injuries suffered by the victim in this case are subject to a single cap.

. 151 P.3d at 367 (Alaska, December 15, 2006).

. 721 P.2d 1121, 1126 (Alaska 1986).

. The full text of AS 09.17.010 provides:
(a) In an action to recover damages for personal injury or wrongful death, all damage claims for noneconomic losses shall be limited to compensation for pain, suffering, inconvenience, physical impairment, disfigurement, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of consortium, and other nonpecuniary damage.
(b) Except as provided under (c) of this section, the damages awarded by a court or a jury under (a) of this section for all claims, including a loss of consortium claim, arising out of a single injuty or death may not exceed $400,000 or the injured person’s life expectancy in years multiplied by $8,000, whichever is greater.
(c) In an action for personal injury, the damages awarded by a court or jury that are described under (b) of this section may not exceed $1,000,000 or the person’s life expectancy in years multiplied by $25,000, whichever is greater, when the damages are awarded for severe permanent physical impairment or severe disfigurement.
(d) Multiple injuries sustained by one person as a result of a single incident shall be treated as a single injury for purposes of this section.

. AS 01.10.040(a) provides in part: "Words and phrases shall be construed according to the rules of grammar and according to their common and approved usage.” When interpreting statutory language, "[ujnless otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as taking their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning." State v. Niedermeyer, 14 P.3d 264, 272 n. 38 (Alaska 2000) (quoting Bachlet v. State, 941 P.2d 200, 205 (Alaska App.1997)).

. 805 P.2d 987 (Alaska App.1991).

. Id. at 990. Note that in this case each penetration was upheld as a separate crime. Id. at 996. Nonetheless the assault taken as a whole was described as an "incident.” Id. at 990.

. Id.

. Id.

. Id. at 989-90.

. Id. at 989.

. 950 P.2d 580 (Alaska App.1997).

. Id. at 584 (brackets in original, emphasis omitted) (quoting State v. Dunlop, 721 P.2d 604, 609 (Alaska 1986)).

. 63 P.3d 1009, 1011 (Alaska 2003).

. Brief of Appellee at 14-15, Kodiak Island Borough v. Roe, 63 P.3d 1009 (Alaska 2003).

. 63 P.3d at 1016.

. Id. at 1016 n. 28.

. Evans v. State, 56 P.3d 1046, 1053 (Alaska 2002).

. See Webster’s Third International Dictionary 1142 (1966).

. Miller v. LHKM, 751 P.2d 1356, 1361 (Alaska 1988) (citing Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 24(2) (1981)).

. See Erickson, 950 P.2d at 584 (concluding that four types of penetration may result properly in four convictions even though committed "in the course of a single incident”); Yearty, 805 P.2d at 995 ("[Ejach count [charging a crime for each of four types of sexual penetration for the "Carrs Supermarket incident”] thus subjected Yearty to a separate conviction and sentence, even though all counts arose from the same criminal episode.”).

. As the court of appeals in Erickson stated: "In Yearly, this court ruled that different forms of sexual penetration constitute different forms of indignity and violation, and they thus merit separate punishment.” 950 P.2d at 587.