Pruitt v. State

• Docket Number: Supreme Court No. S-18191
• Decision Date: 24 March 2023
• Citation: 526 P.3d 136
• Parties: Lance PRUITT, Appellant, v. STATE of Alaska, Office of Lt. Governor, and Kevin Meyer, in an official capacity, Division of Elections, and Gail Fenumiai, in an official capacity, Appellees, Elizabeth A. Hodges Snyder, Intervenor-Appellee.
• Court: Alaska Supreme Court

526 P.3d 136

Lance PRUITT, Appellant,

v.STATE of Alaska, Office of Lt. Governor, and Kevin Meyer, in an official capacity, Division of Elections, and Gail Fenumiai, in an official capacity, Appellees,Elizabeth A. Hodges Snyder, Intervenor-Appellee.

Supreme Court No. S-18191

Supreme Court of Alaska.

March 24, 2023

Stacey C. Stone, Holmes Weddle & Barcott, P.C., Anchorage, for Appellant.

Holly C. Wells, Jennifer C. Alexander, and Zoe A. Danner, Birch Horton Bittner & Cherot, Anchorage, for Intervenor-Appellee.

Notice of nonparticipation filed by Laura Fox, Assistant Attorney General, Anchorage, and Treg R. Taylor, Attorney General, Juneau, for Appellees.

Before: Winfree, Chief Justice, Maassen, Carney, Borghesan, and Henderson, Justices.

OPINION

CARNEY, Justice.

I. INTRODUCTION

After narrowly losing an election a candidate brought an election contest alleging that the Division of Elections had behaved improperly and allowed some voters to cast ballots without meeting constitutional and statutory residency requirements. The superior court affirmed the Division's certification of the election in favor of the opposing candidate and dismissed his suit.

The winning candidate moved for attorney's fees and costs, alleging that certain claims made in the election contest were frivolous or in bad faith. The superior court agreed and awarded the winning candidate full attorney's fees and costs in connection with those claims. The losing candidate appeals, claiming protection from an adverse attorney's fees award as a constitutional claimant per AS 09.60.010, and arguing that the superior court failed to follow proper procedure for imposing fees and costs as sanctions.

We conclude that the unsuccessful candidate's constitutional claims were not frivolous or in bad faith. But — to the extent the superior court's award of attorney's fees and costs was intended as a sanction for violating court rules — the unsuccessful candidate is not exempt from the imposition of such sanctions after notice and an opportunity to be heard. We therefore reverse the award of attorney's fees and costs and remand for further proceedings addressing whether sanctions could be awarded for violations of court rules.

II. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS

A. Election Contest

Elizabeth Snyder narrowly defeated incumbent Lance Pruitt in the November 2020 general election in House District 27. After the results were confirmed in a recount, Pruitt brought an election contest under AS 15.20.540 and 15.20.550.¹ He alleged that the Division had failed to fulfill its responsibility to ensure a fair election in a number of ways, including by permitting at least one individual to vote twice and allowing individuals to vote who did not meet constitutional and statutory residency requirements. Snyder intervened in Pruitt's action against the Division.

Trial was scheduled for December 22 and 23, 2020. On December 17 Pruitt withdrew the double-voting allegation. On the same day Pruitt requested that the court take judicial notice of certain residency-related documents regarding 21 voters he alleged voted in House District 27 but were not residents during the relevant time.² On December 18 Snyder served interrogatories and requests for production regarding the motion for judicial notice and Pruitt's underlying allegation. On December 21 — the day before trial — Pruitt objected to most of Snyder's discovery requests on the basis of attorney-client privilege and attorney work product, and he refused to provide any discovery beyond that previously provided.

Snyder opposed the motion for judicial notice. She argued first that judicial notice could not be taken of disputed issues. Specifically, she argued that home ownership records were not indisputable proof of residency because they did not reflect a voter's residency intent³ — for example, they would not indicate whether the voter had only temporarily left that district. She argued that a voter's registration record provided the presumptive place of residence for voter residency purposes. Snyder argued that voter residence therefore "is not a fact appropriate for judicial notice," but is a legal conclusion to be drawn from factual evidence. Second, Snyder argued that Pruitt's allegations were "factually incorrect or reasonably disputed." Of the 21 people that Pruitt alleged had voted improperly, Snyder claimed that 13 had not actually voted in the district, 2 had moved within the same district and thus voted properly; and whether the remaining 6 had lost their voter residency was unclear. Snyder also urged the court not to consider Pruitt's residency challenge, asserting that it should have been raised during the voting or recount process and that considering it now would disrupt the election result.

On the same day Snyder filed her opposition, Pruitt withdrew the voting allegations against all but the six voters whose votes had been counted but whose voter residency was unclear.

Snyder moved to dismiss Pruitt's suit pursuant to Alaska Civil Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim; the superior court granted her motion on December 22. The court had dismissed the motion for judicial notice on December 21 given that "[v]oter residency is not a fact subject to judicial notice." On December 23, after it dismissed the election contest, it also dismissed as moot Pruitt's updated motion for judicial notice that had withdrawn some of the voters. The superior court issued a final judgment declaring Snyder the winner, and Pruitt appealed the dismissal of his claim that the Division had committed malconduct. We concluded the superior court had erred by dismissing the case on the ground that Pruitt had failed to state a claim, but we nonetheless affirmed dismissal because Pruitt's claims could not succeed on the merits.⁴ We also affirmed the superior court's judgment pronouncing Snyder the winner.⁵

B. Motion For Attorney's Fees

Snyder moved for attorney's fees and costs as the prevailing party. She sought enhanced fees as provided by Alaska Civil Rule 82(b)(3) only for work addressing the "frivolous pleadings or claims" raised by Pruitt that she alleged were "at best, unreasonable, and at worst, brought in bad faith." She sought "all or substantially all" attorney's fees incurred responding to Pruitt's double-voting allegation, responding to his motion for judicial notice, and preparing discovery requests related to the residency allegations. Snyder stated that her actual reasonable attorney's fees were $122,548.67 and she requested $20,782.50. Snyder calculated that the requested amount was less than 17% of the total fees incurred in the action, rather than the full 20% that she could have sought by statute.⁶

Pruitt opposed Snyder's motion for attorney's fees and costs, asserting he was a constitutional claimant protected by AS 09.60.010 from an adverse fee award.⁷ Pruitt contended that because he made a nonfrivolous constitutional claim and did not have an economic incentive to bring the election contest, he met the statute's requirements to be exempt from an award of attorney's fees.

Snyder disputed that Pruitt met the requirements for a constitutional claimant. She claimed that the action was frivolous, pointing to Pruitt's failure to provide evidence that the Division's actions prevented voters from voting, his filing the complaint "with total disregard" for the legal grounds required for an election contest, and the superior court's ultimate dismissal of the case for failure to state a claim. Snyder also claimed that Pruitt had an economic incentive to bring his action because, as the incumbent, he stood to lose his salary, per diem, and reimbursement of business expenses.

The superior court partially granted Snyder's motion for attorney's fees and costs. The court recognized that "the strong public interest in fair and honest elections justifies according public interest litigant status to officeholders or candidates pursuing a claim of error in an election."⁸ It therefore concluded that Pruitt "may not be ordered to pay attorney's fees unless the action was frivolous." Relying on Alaska Building, Inc. v. Legislative Affairs Agency ,⁹ the court noted that claims are not frivolous merely because they have "little reasonable likelihood of success" or seek to modify or establish new law. Rather, a claim can only be considered frivolous "where a party exhibits an improper or abusive purpose, or acts in bad faith." And the court recognized that it must be cautious when finding frivolousness to distinguish an "abuse of the judicial process" from "creative advocacy."¹⁰

The court focused on the three grounds upon which Snyder based her attorney's fees request. After apparently agreeing with Pruitt that "generally ... his lawsuit was non-frivolous," the court noted that Pruitt "d[id] not address [Snyder's] claim that he failed to respond adequately to her discovery requests." It then considered the expedited schedule of election contests and the important public interests at stake and found that, by waiting until the day before trial to respond to Snyder's discovery requests and failing to argue that he actually "met his discovery obligations or acted in good faith," Pruitt had acted in bad faith. The court concluded that by acting in bad faith, Pruitt had brought a frivolous action and was not entitled to protection from attorney's fees as a constitutional claimant under AS 09.60.010(c).¹¹ The court awarded Snyder "actual attorney's fees for preparation of her interrogatories and requests for production."

The superior court also found that Pruitt's "argument that the court should take judicial notice of voter[s]’ non-residency was unsupported by existing law or any argument, however creative or unlikely to succeed, that the law should be modified." It observed that Pruitt had not cited any law governing voter residency or why it should be modified, or explained how the court could use property transaction records as a basis for taking judicial notice of...