The People of Alaska vs The Legislature
Part X: The People’s Right to the PFD Based on Quiet Title
By Michael Tavoliero
Quiet title is a legal remedy that can be applied to Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD). It signifies valid ownership rights when possession has been long-settled but competing claims arise that disrupt the status-quo. It does not create ownership; it recognizes ownership that already exists. Its purpose is to eliminate uncertainty by affirming rights matured through use, reliance, and acknowledgment.
Shilts v. Young (1977)
In Shilts v. Young, 567 P.2d 769 (Alaska 1977), the Alaska Supreme Court reaffirmed that adverse possession requires the possessor’s use to be open, notorious, continuous, exclusive and hostile in order to put the true owner on notice of the possessor’s claim, so that the owner may act to protect his rights. Because the doctrine serves to quiet the title of long-settled possession, it reflects the principle that a beneficial interest acquired through visible and uninterrupted control must ultimately be recognized by law.
Where possession is uninterrupted, acknowledged, and relied upon for decades, title should not remain uncertain.
Not Limited to Land
Although AS 09.45.053 prevents adverse possession from transferring title to state-owned land, the principle underlying the doctrine is not confined to soil. Alaska courts have repeatedly recognized that:
- Longstanding public practice may mature into protected civic rights (e.g., Ravin v. State, 537 P.2d 494 (Alaska 1975)).
- Deeply rooted family autonomy rights cannot be extinguished by statute (Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 268 U.S. 510 (1925)).
- State sovereignty over navigable waters, continuously exercised, becomes recognized and exclusive (Sturgeon v. Frost, 577 U.S. 424 (2016)).
In each case: use + recognition + reliance = enforceable right.
PFD Meets Criteria from Sturgeon v. Frost (2016)
The Permanent Fund Dividend satisfies these criteria fully:
| Element | Application to PFD (1982–Present) |
| Open | Distributed annually, publicly recorded, universally known. |
| Continuous | Paid every year for over forty years. |
| Beneficial | Directly relied upon for household, family, and economic stability. |
| Acquiesced | Affirmed by every legislature and governor for decades. |
| Recognized | Validated as lawful in Zobel v. Williams, 457 U.S. 55 (1982). |
This uninterrupted chain of state administration and public reliance has matured into a settled beneficial property interest.
The legislature’s authority to adjust the PFD was never the source of the PFD benefit; it was merely the adopted mechanism by which the constitutionally-backed benefit was delivered. When the legislature began diverting realized Permanent Fund earnings into general government operations, it ceased acting as trustee and began acting as beneficiary. This is something the Constitution does not permit.
Alaska Trust Law
Thus, the question is no longer whether the people deserve the PFD, but whether the legislature may convert beneficiary property to its own use.
Under Alaska trust law and the Mental Health Trust case law, the answer is clear:
- Conversion of trust income requires restoration, not reinterpretation.
- The remedy is confirmation of the beneficiary right, not legislative discretion.
- When beneficial use is long-settled, the appropriate legal action is quiet title.
Recognizing a pre-existing right, not creating a new one
The PFD arises from the constitutional trust framework established in Article VIII of our Constitution, under which natural resource wealth is held not for the State itself, but “for the maximum benefit of its people.” Over more than forty years, the State continuously, openly, and uniformly distributed a defined share of the Permanent Fund’s realized earnings to eligible residents under a statutory formula. This practice was not incidental; it constituted the State’s own long-term acknowledgment that the people hold the beneficial interest in those earnings.
This sustained pattern of administration created widespread and reasonable reliance. For two generations, families incorporated the PFD into household budgeting, community economies integrated it into local circulation, and the State’s institutions treated the PFD as a fixed, structured distribution of trust income. Under Ravin v. State and Pierce v. Society of Sisters, long-standing rights exercised openly and acknowledged in law mature into constitutionally protected interests. Under Sturgeon v. Frost, jurisdiction or benefit continuously exercised and never disclaimed becomes legally exclusive and resistant to later government recapture.
The PFD follows that same doctrinal arc: use + recognition + reliance = enforceable right.
Equitable estoppel further prevents the State from now characterizing the PFD as a discretionary appropriation. Under Municipality of Anchorage v. Schneider, the State may not repudiate a long-established policy on which the public reasonably relied where doing so would produce injustice. And under State v. Weiss and Weiss v. State, when the State holds revenue in trust, it must (1) protect the corpus, (2) administer income solely for the beneficiaries, and (3) restore distributions if diverted for the trustee’s benefit. The State may not convert trust income into general revenue simply because of fiscal pressures.
Conclusion
Thus, the PFD is not a subsidy, grant, program, or legislative preference. It is the quantified distribution of the people’s beneficial interest in a sovereign resource trust. The legislature may manage the corpus, but it may not unilaterally diminish the beneficiaries’ share of trust earnings without their consent — for authority in Alaska originates in the people themselves (Alaska Const. art. I, § 2).
Accordingly:
- The PFD must be restored as a beneficiary distribution of trust income.
- Any alteration of the original PFD distribution formula must be made only with the consent of the beneficiaries, the people of Alaska, not by legislative or executive decision alone.
- The shift beginning in 2016, where trust earnings were diverted to general government operations, constitutes a breach of fiduciary duty and requires legal remedy.
To secure this right is not to create something new. It is to confirm what has already matured.
To restore this right is not to take from the State. It is to return the trust to its rightful beneficiaries.
The people have held this benefit openly, continuously, and with the State’s affirmative acknowledgment for more than a generation. Under Alaska law, under trust law, under constitutional structure, and under the principles of fairness that precede them all, what the people have possessed cannot now be taken back.
The Great Debate Complete Series
Check out previous articles in The Great Debate: The People of Alaska vs the Legislature:
- Part I: Inflation-Proofing: Where’s the Problem?
- Part II: Follow the Money
- Part III: The 49 Forward Plan Takes the Permanent Fund Backwards
- Part IV: The PFD and the Search for Wisdom
- Part V: Ghost Busting: Dispelling Anti-PFD Phantoms
- Part VI: The People’s Possession: Alaska’s Ownership of the Permanent Fund Dividend
- Part VII: The People’s Constitutional Covenant and the Quieting of Title
- Part VIII: The Constitutional Intent of Alaska’s Resource Wealth
- Part IX: The Constitutional Trust Relationship: The State as Trustee, The People as Beneficiaries