Court Opinion

ID: 9544203
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:53:10.105104+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:12:21.569109
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON REHEARING
ERWIN, Justice.
This court rendered a decision favorable to Lynwood and Mollie Marshall, appellees, on February 25, 1974, as Opinion No. 1002. The appellant, William Modrok, filed this petition for rehearing on March 7, 1974,1 arguing in effect that we misapplied a controlling statute.2
Modrok objects to the portion of our decision which, after holding that he had been lawfully dispossessed in an action for forcible detained, awarded twice the rental value of the property he occupied over the period of the appeal to the prevailing party, the Marshalls. The award is to be taken out of a bond in the amount of twice the rental value over this period which AS 09.45.080 required Modrok to undertake as a condition of his appeal.3 Modrok argues that the statute does not entitle the prevailing party to twice the rental value. In addition, he contends that an interpretation requiring double payment would violate constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process of law.
The United States Supreme Court has held that requiring a forcible entry and de-tainer defendant to post a bond equal to twice the rental value of the property as a condition to appeal of an adverse judgment is a denial of equal protection. Lindsey v. Normet, 405 U.S. 56, 92 S.Ct. 862, 31 L.Ed.2d 36 (1972).4 The court reasoned:
It cannot be denied that the double-bond requirement heavily burdens the statutory right of [a forcible entry and detainer] defendant to appeal. While a State may properly take steps to insure that an appellant post adequate security before an appeal to preserve the property at issue, to guard a damage award already made, or to insure a landlord against loss of rent if the tenant remains in possession, the double-bond requirement here does not effectuate these purposes since it is unrelated to actual rent accrued or to specific damage sustained by the landlord.
*177[The State] has automatically doubled the stakes when a tenant seeks to appeal an adverse judgment in [a forcible entry and detainer] action. The discrimination against the poor, who could pay their rent pending an appeal hut cannot post the double bond, is particularly obvious. For them, as a practical matter, appeal is foreclosed, no matter how meritorious their case may be. The non-indigent [forcible entry and detainer] appellant also is confronted by a substantial barrier to appeal faced by no other civil litigant in Oregon. The discrimination against the class of [forcible entry and detainer] appellants is arbitrary and irrational, and the double-bond requirement . . . violates the Equal Protection Clause. 405 U.S. at 78-79, 92 S.Ct. at 876, 31 L.Ed.2d at 53-54.
The precise issue in Lindsey was the validity of the double bond, but, under the decision, payment of double the rent upon affirmance of the appealed judgment is also foreclosed. Both parties urge us to avoid a constitutional ruling by construing the statute to not demand a double award or to require only payment of reasonable rentals and costs. However, a plain reading permits no other conclusion than that double payment is required, because the statute creates, with affirmance of the judgment below, a duty on the bond sureties to pay twice the rental value over the period of the appeal.5
 We therefore hold that by commanding payment of twice the rental value of property occupied by a defendant appealing an adverse judgment in a forcible entry and detainer action AS 09.45.080 violates the equal protection guarantees of the United States and Alaska Constitutions.6 The state may protect a property owner against loss during an appeal by requiring an appeal bond and payment on affirmance which are related to actual rent accrued or specific damage suffered. An automatic doubling of the rental over the period of the appeal, however, is not reasonably tailored to achieve these ends.
Throughout his appeal and this rehearing, Modrok has made no objection to the requirement that a double bond be posted as a condition to the appeal. Because that issue has not been raised, we limit our ruling in this case to the double payment provisions of AS 09.45.080. Our decision in Opinion No. 1002 is modified, and the case is remanded to the superior court for a determination of the amount owing to the appellees to be deducted from the bond previously filed in this appeal.

. Alaska R.App.P. 27(b) states that the petition “must be filed within ten (10) days after judgment.”

. Alaska R.App.P. 27 (a) allows a rehearing if, among other grounds,
(1) The court has overlooked, misapplied or failed to consider a statute, decision or principle directly controlling ....

. The statute reads :
Undertaking on appeal. If judgment is rendered against the defendant for the restitution of the real property described in the complaint or any part of it, no appeal may be taken by the defendant from the judgment until he gives, in addition to an undertaking required upon appeal, an undertaking to the adverse party with two sureties. The sureties shall justify, in the manner as bail upon arrest, for the payment to the plaintiff of twice the rental value of the real property of which restitution shall he adjudged from the rendition of the judgment until final judgment in the action, if the judgment is affirmed upon appeal, (emphasis added)

. The Court struck down Ore.Rev.Stat. § 105.160 which reads:
§ 105.160. Additional undertaking on appeal. If judgment is rendered against the defendant for the restitution of the real property described in the complaint, or any part thereof, no appeal shall be taken by the defendant from the judgment until he gives, in addition to the undertaking now required by law upon appeal, an undertaking to the adverse party, with two sureties, who shall justify in like manner as bail upon arrest, for the payment to the plaintiff if the judgment is affirmed on appeal of twice the rental value of the real property of which restitution is adjudged from the commencement of the action in which the judgment was rendered until final judgment in the action.
This statute is nearly identical to AS 09.-45.080. Compare note 3 supra. The Oregon statute became the law of the Territory of Alaska by Act of Congress in 1884. Ch. 53, § 7, 23 Stat. 25-26 (1884). The minor differences in language appear to derive from redrafting by Senator Carter when the territorial provision was compiled as Carter’s Ann.Alaska Codes § 1024. See the notes of the Senator in Carter’s Ann.Alaska Codes at xviii (1907).

. The Oregon Supreme Court held that Ore.Rev.Stat. § 105.160 required double payment. Scales v. Spencer, 246 Or. 111, 424 P.2d 242, 243 (1967).

. U.S.Const. amend. XIV; Alaska Const. art. 1, § 1.