Court Opinion

ID: 9569684
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:16:24.58625+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:03:44.968508
License: Public Domain

RABINO WITZ, Chief Justice,
dissenting in part.
I disagree with the court’s treatment of prejudgment interest. The issue of prejudgment interest was disposed of by this court in the initial appeal in this case. See Farnsworth v. Steiner, 601 P.2d 266, 272 (Alaska 1979).1 Subsequent to the issuance of our mandate in the first appeal the superior court modified its judgment as it pertained to prejudgment interest.
Normally, “the law of the case” doctrine would preclude this court from modifying its earlier holding as to prejudgment interest. As Professor Moore notes:
When ... a federal court enunciates a rule of law to be applied in the case at bar it not only establishes a precedent for subsequent cases under the doctrine of stare decisis, but, as a general proposition, it establishes the law, which other courts owing obedience to it must, and which it itself will, normally apply to the *186same issues in subsequent proceedings in that case.
IB J. Moore & T. Currier, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 0.404[1], at 402-03 (1980) (footnotes omitted). The author goes on to observe that “when a federal appellate court has established a rule of law for the case at bar it will not, on a successive appeal, depart therefrom in deciding the same issues, except for cogent reasons.”2 Id. ¶ 0.404[10], at 573. In my view the majority has not articulated “cogent reasons” for departing from its prior holding in this case. Therefore, I believe that the majority’s holding in regard to prejudgment interest is improper in light of the law of the case doctrine.
Even if the majority’s treatment of the prejudgment interest issue were compatible with the law of the case, Alaska R.App.P. 210(e) would preclude it. Appellant did not raise the prejudgment interest issue in his points on appeal, and Rule 210(e) states that this court “will consider nothing but the points so stated.” Relaxation of that rule is appropriate only when “strict adherence” to it “will work surprise or injustice.” Alaska R.App.P. 521. In my opinion it would not be reasonable to relax Rule 210(e) under the present circumstances. Even if, as Orbeck v. Wheeler Construction Co., 394 P.2d 781, 783 (Alaska 1964) suggests, a finding of plain error by this court is sufficient to justify relaxation of the rule in a civil case, here I think it would be highly inappropriate to resort to a plain error approach. Only by doing violence to the appellate process can this court conclude that the superior court committed plain error when it obeyed our prior mandate as to prejudgment interest.

. There we held in part:
However, under Rule 68, a party who is successful at trial but who rejected an offer of judgment which exceeded his trial recovery, is permitted to recover expenses and fees— including prejudgment interest — only from the date that the cause of action accrues, to the date of the rejected offer of judgment.
Farnsworth v. Steiner, 601 P.2d 266, 272 (Alaska 1979) (footnote omitted).

. Moore describes the policies underlying the doctrine as follows:
The general American doctrine is that a court is not inexorably bound by its own precedents, but in the interests of uniformity of treatment to litigants, and of stability and certainty in the law will follow the relevant rule of law which it has established in earlier cases, unless clearly convinced that the legal rule was originally erroneous or is no longer sound because of changed conditions and that more good than harm would come by departing from precedent. These same principles should, and in the main do, determine the doctrine of the law of the case for the federal courts. And they apply in probably most state courts, although some state courts apply the doctrine rigidly in a manner approximating res judicata.
IB J. Moore & T. Currier, Moore’s Federal Practice ¶ 0.404[1], at 401-02 (1980) (footnotes omitted).