Alaska Supreme Court Rules Missing Paperwork May Be Sufficient to Avoid Statute of Limitation

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - The Supreme Court of Alaska has remanded a workers' compensation case to determine whether the pro se plaintiff's first claim, for which no paperwork is available, was filed within the two-year statute of limitation. Collins v. Arctic Builders, Inc., et al., No. S-9352 (Alaska Sup. Ct.).

Plaintiff Wayne E. Collins maintains that he filed a claim to the Alaska state workers' compensation office in 1991, less than one year after he was diagnosed with chronic asbestos pleuritis. But his application was lost and there is no record of his attempted application.

Case History

Collins was exposed to …