Court Opinion

ID: 9788545
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:56:25.607721+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:12.349424
License: Public Domain

MATTHEWS, Justice,
with whom FABE, Chief Justice, joing, concurring.
I agree with today's per curiam opinion. But I would hold that due process-in addition to the abuse of discretion standard-required a supplemental evidentiary hearing. I doubt that the principle that constitutional grounds should not be reached when a case may be decided on non-constitutional grounds should apply to this or other cases where the constitutional grounds supply the standard on which the non-constitutional grounds are based. Taken to extremes, application of the principle would mean that there would never be constitutionally based rulings where it could be said that the questioned conduct also amounted to a non-constitutional error subsumed in the constitutional standard.
EASTAUGH, Justice,
concurring.
For all the reasons the per curiam opinion ably discusses, I agree that a remand is necessary and that we do not need to reach Frost's due process arguments.
But I write separately because in my view it was an abuse of discretion not to grant Frost's Alaska Civil Rule 59(a) motion for a new trial, There may not seem to be much difference between a remand for a new trial and a remand for a further evidentiary hearing. Either way, as the court's opinion recognizes, the parties must have an adequate opportunity to offer evidence relevant to the legal principles that control the dispute. Perhaps it is only a matter of degree, but remanding for a new trial, rather than for an additional evidentiary hearing, helps emphasize that much of the evidence offered at the first trial may be irrelevant at the second, and that the parties will need to start over in marshaling and presenting the evidence relevant to the business partnership law applicable to their lawsuit. Remanding for "an additional hearing" might be taken as a suggestion that a supplemental hearing will do. In light of the rigorous time limits imposed on the parties at the first trial, an evidentiary hearing that merely supplements the evidence offered at the first trial may not give the parties enough time to try their case adequately. I therefore prefer to resolve the appeal in terms of the denial of Frost's motion for a new trial or a partial new trial.