McGee v. McGee

Although the federal quota program had not yet been implemented when the marriage was dissolved, the entitlement it created rested on the Tamarack's fishing history during the qualifying years. Debra and Ken jointly owned the vessel during those years, and both contributed to the fishing business. The later-issued shares therefore represented value produced by marital efforts.

The court treated the shares like post-dissolution income or assets received for work performed during marriage. Alaska law recognizes that an asset may be marital even when it is received later, if it compensates for or derives from marital labor. The court's prior IFQ decisions also recognized that the marital or separate character of quota shares depends on when the underlying work occurred, not on when the quota program came into existence.

The possibility that NMFS might not adopt the program did not make the eventual entitlement too speculative to divide. Once the government created the program, the shares were a concrete form of property tied to the couple's marital fishing activity, unlike the uncertain future government benefits on which Ken relied.

Rule 60(b)(1), which has a one-year deadline, did not govern because it generally addresses mistakes or events existing before judgment. The creation of the IFQ program and the issuance of the shares to Ken occurred after the dissolution decree. Nor was this merely an ordinary change in law or newly discovered evidence; it was the creation of a major governmental entitlement program that generated substantial wealth from marital activity.

Rule 60(b)(6) permits relief for other extraordinary reasons. The court considered equitable factors used in prior dissolution cases: whether a basic premise of the settlement had been destroyed, whether the division was poorly considered, whether the parties lacked meaningful legal assistance, and whether the omitted asset was especially significant. These factors supported relief because the settlement omitted the quota shares entirely, the parties had limited legal representation, and the shares were worth more than any single listed marital asset and perhaps more than the whole estate.

The court emphasized the unusual structure of the IFQ program. It created a valuable property right after dissolution but based eligibility on work and ownership during the marriage. Reopening the decree restored the parties' apparent intended status quo—an equal division of their marital property—rather than giving Debra an undeserved windfall.

Debra moved promptly once she learned that the program had been implemented and that Ken had received the shares. Her motion came no more than five months after she learned of the relevant change in circumstances, and Alaska precedent had treated comparable or longer delays as reasonable under Rule 60(b)(6).

An implied waiver requires direct and unequivocal conduct showing an intent to surrender a legal right, or neglect that reasonably communicates that the party will not later assert it. The record instead suggested that the McGees generally intended an equal property division. A vague reference to permits in a negotiating document did not establish that Debra agreed Ken would receive all future quota shares.

Debra's failure to preserve a quota-share claim in the original dissolution did not amount to a clear relinquishment. At that time the shares did not yet exist, and her conduct would not have told a reasonable person that she would permanently forgo a claim to an asset later created from marital fishing activity.

Quasi-estoppel likewise did not apply because Debra had not previously taken a position inconsistent with her later request for an equal share. Seeking Rule 60(b)(6) relief was consistent with the parties' apparent intent to divide marital assets equally.

The fee order was reasoned and grounded largely in Ken's misrepresentation of his ownership interest in the Tamarack, which the superior court viewed as a principal cause of the dispute. The award was not arbitrary, capricious, manifestly unreasonable, or motivated improperly.

Civil Rule 82, rather than the divorce-specific relative-economic-positions approach, applied to this post-judgment Rule 60(b)(6) proceeding. Alaska precedent permits Rule 82 fees in proceedings to modify or enforce a divorce judgment, even when the omitted property issue was not expressly litigated in the original decree.

Alaska does not require interspousal tort claims to be litigated in divorce proceedings, even when the tort and dissolution dispute arise from related events. Requiring joinder would complicate and delay dissolution proceedings, which are equitable matters generally tried to the court, with tort actions that may require a jury, additional witnesses, insurers, or other parties.

Those same practical concerns applied after Debra sought Rule 60(b) relief. Her tort claim included remedies and procedural rights, including punitive damages and a possible jury trial, that the Rule 60(b) property proceeding could not adequately provide. Thus, the rule against claim-splitting did not preclude the separate action.

Collateral estoppel applied to the already-resolved property issue because the same parties litigated Debra's entitlement to the quota shares in the Rule 60(b) proceeding, and that proceeding ended in a final judgment. Debra therefore could not use the tort action to obtain a second adjudication of her ownership interest in the shares.

But the Rule 60(b) court granted relief because the marital settlement had omitted a valuable marital asset, not because it found that Ken intentionally misrepresented his ownership to NMFS. The alleged misconduct, including whether it was outrageous enough to support punitive damages, was neither litigated nor essential to the Rule 60(b) judgment.

Because the tort action remained viable as to punitive damages, Ken was no longer the prevailing party in that action. The supreme court therefore reversed the dismissal, vacated Ken's attorney's-fee award, and remanded for further proceedings.