The Alaska Supreme Court has ruled that a lower court acted correctly in dismissing an Alaska resident’s challenge to the state’s salmon management, noting that the lawsuit did not actually challenge any government action.
“He did not challenge any specific policy, regulation, or action by the state,” the Alaska Supreme Court said in its opinion. “The superior court ruled the claims were nonjusticiable and dismissed the suit for failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted. We affirm the superior court’s ruling that the resident failed to state a justiciable claim.”
Longtime resident Eric Forrer sued the Alaska state government in September 2022, claiming that regulators were mismanaging declining Chinook and chub salmon stocks in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. In doing so, he said, regulators were violating the state constitution requirement to manage fish for sustainable yield.
However, Bethel Superior Court Judge Nathaniel Peters dismissed the case in April 2023, agreeing with the state’s defense that Forrer had not challenged any specific policy or action. Forrer appealed to the Alaska Supreme Court in a last effort to continue his suit.
In a 10 October opinion, the Alaska Supreme Court upheld the district court’s ruling, dismissing Forrer’s lawsuit.
“Because Forrer’s claims for injunctive relief raise political questions unsuitable for judicial resolution and his claim for declaratory relief does not present an actual controversy, these claims are not justiciable,” the court stated.
While the state government won that challenge to its salmon management, it is still battling the federal government over subsistence fishing. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled in favor of federal policy that provides preferential treatment to rural Alaskans fishing along the Kuskokwim River. The Alaska government has since asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up its case.
