Shelley Fredrickson, Appellant v. Forest J. Button, Appellee.

Summary

The Alaska Supreme Court vacated the retrospective child-support calculation insofar as it treated Fredrickson's $300,000 payment from Japan as income without adequate findings, and remanded for a determination of the payment's nature and recalculation. The court affirmed application of the child-support guidelines, imputation of income to Fredrickson, and the decision not to impute income to Button, but vacated the attorney-fee award because the prevailing-party determination could change on remand. Justice Bolger, dissenting, would have affirmed treating the Japanese payment as income because the record supported its characterization as a settlement or, alternatively, as resources available for retrospective support.