Court Opinion

ID: 9546800
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:35:22.741155+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:51.270818
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
The majority holds that AS 09.60.060 violates equal protection of the law under the Alaska Constitution because it unreasonably restricts non-resident access to Alaska Courts. Because I believe that the statute as applied in the instant case is not unconstitutional, I respectfully dissent.
Although access to courts is not a fundamental right, it nevertheless is an important one. In Bush v. Reid, 516 P.2d 1215 (Alaska 1973), this court held that a statute which denied parolees access to the courts violated the due process and equal protection clauses of both the United States Constitution and the Alaska Constitution. Id. at 1220. The court explained that “[bjecause the only reasonable use of the ‘property’ represented by an unlitigated claim is reduction to judgment followed by collection or assignment, deprivation of that use deprives the claimant of the whole value of his property so long as he remains non sui juris.” Id. at 1219. However, this is not a case in which a claimant’s access to courts has been denied.
*1381The cost bond statute does not deny an out-of-state plaintiff access to Alaska’s courts. Rather, it requires the plaintiff to post security to cover costs and fees which the court may, in its discretion, award against him in the event that he loses the case. Upon posting the cost bond, the plaintiff has full access to the courts.
In the instant case Patrick never alleged inability to obtain a bond. As the representative of a class of plaintiffs, he is required by Civil Rule 23 to possess financial capacity to handle this sort of cost. See In re Consumer Power Company Litigation, 105 P.R.D. 583, 607 (E.D.Mich.1985); Fulk v. Bagley, 88 F.R.D. 153, 168 (M.D.N.C.1980). Thus, this case does not present a situation where a plaintiff is denied access to the courts by operation of the cost bond statute.1 The appropriate question posed by this case is therefore whether imposing a bond requirement on non-residents who are able to afford a bond violates the nonresidents’ right to equal protection.
Where the cost-bond statute does not seriously impede access to the courts, it does not merit close scrutiny. Herrick’s Aero-Auto-Aqua Repair Serv. v. State, Dep’t of Transp. & Pub. Facilities, 754 P.2d 1111, 1114 (Alaska 1988). As such, this court should look to whether the statutory distinction is “reasonable, not arbitrary” and rests “upon some ground of difference having a fair and substantial relation to the object of the legislation.” Id. (quoting Isakson v. Rickey, 550 P.2d 359 (Alaska 1976)). The statute easily satisfies this test.
The cost bond statute reflects a reasonable assumption that it will be more difficult to enforce an award against a non-resident than against a resident. Residents are more likely than non-residents, for instance, to own assets subject to execution within the state. Enforcing an Alaska judgment in another state is certainly more expensive than enforcing it here. Local counsel must be employed, and a separate action filed. Several courts have held that this is a legitimate basis for a non-resident cost bond statute. See, e.g., In re Merrill Lynch Relocation Management, Inc., 812 F.2d 1116, 1122 (9th Cir.1987); Hawes v. Club Ecuestre El Comandante, 535 F.2d 140, 145 (1st Cir.1976); Russell v. Cunningham, 233 F.2d 806 (9th Cir.1956). The rationale for these cases applies with even greater force in Alaska, because of Alaska’s remote position relative to other states.
The statute is also an acceptable means to accomplish the legislature’s goal of ensuring collectability of fees and cost awards against non-resident plaintiffs. While the statute may be somewhat overin-clusive and underinclusive, it is not fatally so. The fact that the statute applies to all non-resident plaintiffs, and not only to “uncooperative” ones, is not of significance in the absence of some indication that there exists a reliable means of distinguishing cooperative from uncooperative plaintiffs at the outset of litigation. Moreover, as one court has stated, “the Equal Protection Clause does not require that a State must choose between attacking every aspect of a problem or not attacking a problem at all.” Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 486, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1162, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970). A state may use somewhat overinclusive classifications as a legitimate prophylactic device to assure that the statute’s ends will be achieved. See also L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law, § 16-4, at 999 (1978).
The statute’s failure to require a cost bond from “uncooperative” residents does not render it fatally underinclusive. Again, the obvious problem of distinguishing cooperative from uncooperative plaintiff-debtors at the beginning of a lawsuit lends an air of unreality to this point. Further, “[ujnderinclusive classifications violate the equal protection clause if the classification is ‘clearly wrong, [and] a display of arbitrary power, [rather than] an exercise of judgment.’ ” Gilman v. Martin, 662 P.2d 120, 126 (Alaska 1983) (quoting Mathews v. De Castro, 429 U.S. 181, 185, *138297 S.Ct. 431, 434, 50 L.Ed.2d 389 (1976)). See also L. Tribe, American Constitutional Law, § 16-4, at 997. The cost bond statute represents an exercise of judgment by the legislature that non-residents, as a class, present a greater likelihood of collection difficulties than do residents. This judgment is neither clearly wrong nor arbitrary. Indeed, a number of legislatures have enacted similar provisions which have been judicially approved.2
In summary, this case does not present a situation where a statute infringes upon an important right. The statute as applied here to a non-resident who has the financial ability to post a cost bond does not seriously impede access to the courts. The statute is sufficiently well tailored to its purpose of assuring that successful litigants will be able to collect awards of costs and fees to pass constitutional muster.

. The statute would probably be unconstitutional as applied to a litigant who could not obtain a bond. In that case, the statute’s bond requirement would operate as a bar to adjudication of rights similar to that in Bush v. Reid, 516 P.2d 1215 (Alaska 1973).

. See In re Merrill Lynch Relocation Management, Inc., 812 F.2d 1116, 1123 (9th Cir.1987) (Oregon statute which imposed liability for costs on attorney for non-resident plaintiff— such liability was subject to discharge by filing a cost bond — found not a violation of equal protection since the legislature could rationally conclude that "[cjosts were more difficult to recover from nonresidents than residents. Hawes v. Club Ecuestre El Comandante, 535 F.2d 140 (1st Cir.1976) (upholding cost bond rule and listing 22 district courts which have promulgated cost bond rules specifically applicable to non-resident plaintiffs); Citibank (South Dakota), N.A. v. Gonzalez, 452 Misc.2d 1007, 114 N.Y.S.2d 1012 (N.Y.Civ.Ct.1982); Borders Electronic Co. v. Quirk, 97 Nev. 205, 626 P.2d 266 (1981); Wright v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 569 P.2d 821 (Ariz.1977); Gram v. Village of Shoreview, 259 Minn. 145, 106 N.W.2d 553 (1960); State v. District Court, 111 Mont. 178, 107 P.2d 880 (1940); Outlaw v. Pearce, 176 Va. 458, 11 S.E.2d 600 (1940); State v. Superior Court, 81 P.2d 286 (Wash.1938).