High court revives local lawsuit

PALMER — The state’s highest court has given another chance to a man convicted of taking a shot at his neighbors in his lawsuit against those neighbors for trespassing.

Siegfried Pedersen is representing himself in a lawsuit filed against Daniel Blythe and Bobie Luxford.

Pedersen initially filed a lawsuit for both defamation and trespassing. Superior Court Judge Kari Kristiansen tossed the case out in January before it got to trial, but in a ruling issued Nov. 16, the Alaska Supreme Court revived it. Justice Peter Maassen penned the opinion.

“We conclude that the superior court erred when, in deciding the motion to dismiss, it considered matters outside the pleadings without advising Pedersen of its intent to do so and giving him a reasonable opportunity to respond. We hold that this error is harmless with regard to Pedersen’s defamation claims. We also hold, however, that it was plain error for the superior court to dismiss Pedersen’s trespass claims,” Massen wrote.

Kristiansen tossed the defamation claim because Pedersen claimed he was defamed when his neighbors accused him of shooting at them. But since a jury found the neighbors were truthful and truthful statements can’t be defamatory, Pedersen had no legal leg to stand on.

Massen wrote that dismissing the defamation claim was the right call, but Kristiansen should have told Pedersen she intended to consider evidence from his criminal case — namely, evidence that he was convicted.

But that conviction didn’t have implications for the trespassing claims, so Massen sent those back to Kristiansen to be reconsidered.

As far as can be discerned from court records, the entire twisted, years-long saga appears to have begun with a “Children at Play” sign erected in Pedersen’s neighborhood.

In September 2009, Alaska State Troopers were summonsed to the Caswell Lakes neighborhood after his neighbor said Pedersen, upset about the sign, took a shot at him.

He came back two hours later and took a shot at the neighbor’s house. A warrant was issued. Troopers sent up a team to get him that included Wasilla, Palmer and Anchorage police. Pedersen was arrested after a brief police chase.

Juries eventually found him guilty of assault. Pedersen fought and lost an appeal of those verdicts.

He filed the trespassing and defamation lawsuit in November 2010.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.