Court Opinion

ID: 9563570
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:42:00.15077+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:55.443610
License: Public Domain

COMPTON, Justice,
dissenting in part.
I do not agree with Section III.A.2. It is based on City of Fairbanks v. Schaible, 375 P.2d 201 (Alaska 1962), which is distinguishable in a significant and material way from this case. I do not believe Schaible is either controlling or persuasive.
In Schaible we held that “[s]ection 56-2-2 A.C.L.A.1949 in plain language imposes liability ‘for an injury to the rights of the plaintiff arising from some act or omission’ of the City.” Id. at 208. Noting that the City “relies heavily on [Gilbertson v. City of Fairbanks, 262 F.2d 734, 739 (9th Cir.1959)], where the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ... held that the mantle of municipal immunity covers a firefighting activity of the City of Fairbanks,” id. at 209, we observed that § 56-2-2
was totally ignored in the Gilbertson opinion. Whether it was considered in reaching that decision, we do not know. Assuming it had not been considered, we cannot speculate as to whether a different result *605would have been reached if the history and meaning of that statute had been examined. In any event, it would make no difference here. The Supreme Court of the State of Alaska is not bound by the Ninth [C]ircuit decision in Gilbertson.
Id. (footnotes omitted).
We then addressed the City’s following argument:
Finally, the City contends that a 1957 statute of the Alaska legislature impliedly recognized municipal immunity in this area.38 It may be true that the person who drafted this act and the legislature that enacted it believed that such immunity existed. This is understandable in light of the then prevailing view of the Territorial district court that a city was not liable in tort in the exercise of a governmental function. But we hold that this is not the law in Alaska. Thus, the most that can be said for the 1957 statute is that it represents an erroneous belief that cities are not liable in tort for negligence connected with firefighting activities.
Id. at 209-10 (footnotes and citations omitted, except as noted; emphasis added).
Section 40-14-1 did not purport to amend § 56-2-2. The City argued that § 40-14-1’s enactment was an implied recognition of municipal immunity. It is not clear from the opinion whether the City was arguing that § 40-14-1 impliedly created municipal immunity or that it was implied evidence of the meaning of § 56-2-2. Regardless, neither interpretation is material in this case.
It is not correct to say, as does the court, that “[t]he legislature that passed the AS 09.10.040(b) amendment, like the legislature that passed the 1957 statute in Schaible, was relying on an erroneous construction of the law by a lower court.” Op. at 603. I assume that the court is referring to § 40-14-1, the 1957 statute, as “the statute in Schaible,” and referring to § 56-2-2, the 1949 municipal-liability statute, as “the law” that a lower court had “erroneously] constru[ed].” But Schaible never determined that the 1957 legislature did, in fact, pass § 40-14-1 in reliance on any construction of § 56-2-2 by a lower court. We said “it may be true” that the drafter of § 40-14-1 and the legislature that passed it were relying on an erroneous view of the law; we did not say that it was true. Moreover, the City’s argument was that § 40-14-1, the later statute, had impliedly recognized municipal immunity from tort liability for negligent firefighting; contrary to the City’s view, however, we held that such liability was imposed “in plain language” by § 56-2-2. We did not determine that the later statute had in fact established or recognized municipal immunity. And we did not determine that the 1957 legislature had intended to establish or recognize municipal immunity, only that the “1957 statute ... represents an erroneous belief that cities are not liable in tort for negligence connected with fire-fighting activities.” Id. at 209. Had that been the legislative intent, the analogy might be persuasive.
In sum, my disagreement focuses on the court’s equation of AS 09.10.040(b) with § 40-14-1, which the court says was “the statute in Schaible.” It was not. The “statute in Schaible” was § 56-2-2, which governed the case and made the City liable “in plain language.” The City unsuccessfully tried to put § 40-14-1 “at issue” by pointing to it as evidence that a later legislature had thought that municipalities were immune from such liability. In this case, AS 09.10.040(b), the statute at issue, is not evidence of how to interpret some other statute that in fact governs the case; it is the statute that governs the case.
In the case before us, there is no question what the legislature intended. The fact that its intention was motivated by trial courts having interpreted a statute in a way the legislature — or, in this case, the executive branch — found unwise or unworkable is no reason to ignore what the legislature intended. That is not our prerogative. We cannot suppose that, had the legislature known we would disagree with the trial courts’ interpre*606tations of AS 09.10.040(b), it would have enacted a different statute. Yet that is the import of the court’s opinion.
The best that can be said for Schaible is that the legislature acquiesced in a federal appellate court’s interpretation of Alaska law, an interpretation that the Alaska Supreme Court ultimately found wanting. In the case at bar, the legislature emphatically disagreed with trial courts’ interpretations of a law, and enacted a law that it wanted to govern the rights and responsibilities of parties in a given situation. It did not acquiesce in judicial determinations; it rejected those determinations and declared what it wanted the law to be. This is not a distinction without a difference.
Since it is clear to me, and by its own admission to the court as well, that the legislature amended the statute intending the result the State asks us to enforce, we must do so.

. S.L.A.1957, ch. 92 [Sec. 40-14-1 A.C.L.A.Cum.Supp.1957] provides that fire-fighting organizations of Alaska, when engaged outside their home districts, “shall have the same immunities and privileges as if performing the same [functions] within their respective cities, towns, incorporated area or territory." The City's argument as to the meaning of this language finds support in Gilbertson....