In Haight v. City & Borough of Juneau,[1] the supreme court held that the municipal’s decision not to regulate safety requirement for a lake was not a waiver of sovereign immunity. Haight sued the City of Juneau for the wrongful death of her daughter after she died from a boating accident that occurred on Auke Lake. The city shares management of the lake with the state of Alaska and had passed an ordinance governing use of watercraft on the lake and constructed a boat launch into the lake but did not enact safety regulations for use of the lake. Alaskan municipalities have sovereign immunity from claims involving discretionary functions, but Haight argued that this immunity did not apply because safety regulations were an operational decision in implementing the boat launch, not a planning decision regarding the lake. The supreme court rejected this argument, holding that the decision not to regulate the lake was a discretionary planning decision and thus, protected from suit. Regulating the lake was not dependent on the construction of the new boat launch so it cannot be an operational decision based on implementing the boat launch. A report recommended the implementation of safety regulations but the city rejected several safety proposals when passing the lake’s watercraft governing ordinance. Thus, the decision to not to implement safety regulations on Auke Lake was a discretionary planning decision and the city may not be sued for claims arising from this decision.
[1] 448 P.3d 254 (Alaska 2019).
