Articles Posted in Legal News

If you represent or care for a disabled person, you are likely already aware of special needs trusts. These trusts allow litigation proceeds, and other contributions, to be set aside so that the funds can be protected for the disabled beneficiary, while still maintaining income eligibility for benefit programs such as SSI, Medicaid, and other important benefit programs. Such trusts, however, can be restrictive in their payments if benefit eligibility is to continue. Primarily, beneficiaries are not permitted to have access to assets outside a special needs trust above a limit set by each state. In Alaska, having more that $2,000 in assets would prevent a disabled beneficiary from receiving some benefits.

A recently passed federal statute has now tackled this problem: The ABLE Act. This law allows states to set up their own programs permitting a disabled person to set up a separate account, much like an IRA or HSA, that would not count as an asset in the income eligibility analysis. Alaska is one of just a handful of states that have adopted this legislation. With Gov. Walker having just signed the bill into law in August,2016, the application process in Alaska is still being ironed out.

Here are some key elements of the law. The disability must have occurred before age 26, and many types of disabilities are permitted, including physical, hearing, mental health, and other disabilities. Total annual contributions may not exceed the federal gift tax limit, now at $14,000. A total of $400,000 may be contributed. A beneficiary may have only one account, but anyone can contribute to the account. Neither the funds contributed to the account,nor the interest earned in the account, are deemed to be taxable. The funds can be spent on items such as housing, personal support, assistive technology, and many other needs, including items normally not permitted under a special needs trust.

The Alaska Supreme Court recently issued an opinion in Asher v. Alkan Shelter, LLC, which is a case involving an employee’s embezzlement of funds from his employer. The Alaska Supreme Court reversed the trial court’s ruling that the employee and his girlfriend were jointly and severally liable to the employer for the stolen funds, holding that AS 09.17.080, Alaska’s allocation of fault statute, required the court to allocate fault and liability between the employee and his girlfriend.

Significantly, the court ruled that the trial court should not simply determine the total damages suffered by the employer and allocate fault for those damages between the employee and his girlfriend. Instead, the court ruled that the trial court should only allocate fault on those damages it found had been caused by both the employee and the girlfriend. The effect of the court’s ruling is that if a defendant is responsible for a part of, but not all of, a plaintiff’s damages, trial courts and juries must separate the plaintiff’s damages into their divisible parts and make separate allocations of fault for each category of damages.

On Monday, June 9, 2008, a chartered tour bus carrying Korean tourists traveling to Fairbanks crashed when the bus left the highway and rolled. The cause of the accident is unknown, but the initial scene investigation indicated that the bus hit a ditch, went airborne, and rolled at least once. Thirteen of the passengers were hurt, three of them critically.

The accident occurred on the Richardson Highway, approximately 175 miles northeast of Anchorage. Five Alaska State Troopers responded to the scene, and the critically injured were medivaced by Army Black Hawk helicopters.

The 54 seat tour bus was being operated by the Luxury Coach Line, a California-based corporation operating charter tours.