BETHEL -- A Yup'ik mother quit a well-paying job and tumultuous life in Anchorage to connect with Native culture in her home village of Stebbins. But she also left behind a daughter -- and, a divided Alaska Supreme Court said in a ruling Friday, a duty to pay sizeable child support.
Was the mother retreating from reality, like someone on a spiritual quest to Tibet, as a Superior Court judge suggested? Or was she seeking to live a traditional life centered on subsistence and culture, not money and work, as one of the two dissenting justices characterized it?
"Today's decision has enormous negative implications," said Justice Daniel Winfree, who used strong language in a dissent that ran 23 pages, several more than the ruling. "It trivializes and devalues Alaska Natives' cultural, spiritual, and religious connections to their villages and their subsistence lifestyle."
Three justices came down in support of maintaining high child support in the case of Sharpe v. Sharpe. The opinion was written by Justice Joel Bolger, who was joined by justices Dana Fabe and Peter Maassen. It focused on whether the mother's decision to be unemployed was "unreasonable."
The justices determined that it was, as did a Superior Court judge who oversaw earlier proceedings.
The case offers a glimpse into the life of Jolene Lyon and her decade-long marriage to Jyzyk Sharpe. While married and living in Anchorage, Lyon, a high school graduate, landed an unspecified $120,000-per-year-job with Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. As part of the divorce in 2012, she was ordered to pay $1,507 a month in child support, based on that salary. Then in 2013 she moved to Stebbins, where her only income was her Permanent Fund dividend, and sought to pay only the minimal $50 a month in support.
The justices found that she should continue paying child support as if she still held that good job.
'Dark marriage'
Craig Stowers, who is now Alaska's chief justice, and Winfree disagreed with the majority and argued that the matter should return to the Superior Court judge. Winfree said the question should be framed around job opportunities in Stebbins.
"The court's decision means that once a non-custodial Native Alaska parent participates in the cash economy of urban Alaska that parent may be unable to voluntarily return to a rural tribal community and live either a local cash-economy lifestyle, a culturally and religiously based subsistence, non-cash lifestyle, or even something in between," Winfree wrote.
In a sense, the ruling against the mother doesn't matter -- for her. Circumstances abruptly changed in 2014 when Sharpe was charged with murder and manslaughter in the death of a different child, a toddler who was unrelated to the couple. Lyon in 2014 quickly regained custody of their daughter, now a young teenager. She no longer owes child support, said Darryl Thompson, her attorney in the appeal.
The Supreme Court justices were looking at the situation as it was before the toddler's death.
Big principles still are at stake, including whether a former village resident under a child support order can return home without fear of financial ruin.
"Jolene was a wonderful soul in a dark marriage and got out of it," Thompson said Friday afternoon. "Associated with it (were) violence and booze, and she changed her life." She needed to return home to her family and culture, to do so, he said.
Village mother
Lyon, whose married name was Sharpe, grew up in Nome and Stebbins, a traditional village of about 550 people on the coast of St. Michael Island 120 miles southeast of Nome. She's half Yup'ik, on her mother's side. The father, Sharpe, also is Alaska Native and from the Kotzebue area. They married in 2002 and divorced 10 years later after a rough separation.
Early in 2010, a few months after Lyon started at Alyeska, she started drinking heavily, according to a narrative in the dissent. In August 2011, her husband filed for divorce. Initially, the couple shared custody. Then there was an "alcohol-related incident of violence" at her home, with their daughter present, according to the narrative. In February 2012, Anchorage Superior Court Judge Andrew Guidi gave the father primary custody and temporarily limited the mother to supervised visits.
In July 2012, after a divorce trial, the judge set the monthly child support at $1,507, based on her salary at Alyeska. In April 2013, she moved to Stebbins with her boyfriend -- who also was from there -- along with their young son. She was a stay-at-home mother. And later that year, she went back to court over child support.
The girl was living mainly with her father, but as the court ruling describes, spent summers with her mother in the village.
"In determining whether a parent is 'unreasonably' unemployed, the superior court must look to the totality of the circumstances, including 'such factors as whether the obligor's reduced income is temporary, whether the change is the result of economic factors or of purely personal choices, the children's needs, and the parents' needs and financial abilities,'" Bolger wrote, quoting from a decision in an earlier case.
Child support is based on a percentage of the non-custodial parent's income, and parents can't just quit good jobs because they want a change, the justice said, pointing to rulings in other cases.
The mother's needs were considered -- but the child's need for financial support outweighed them, the justices determined.
Guidi found that Lyon "is finding sort of a spiritual reawakening or reconnecting with Native dance, Native culture, subsistence lifestyle."
But he also said that she was in effect "taking a vacation from the financial responsibilities that she assumed when she had a child."
He disagreed that Lyon couldn't make money in Stebbins.
The dissenters questioned whether it would be realistic for her to again get a high-paying job like she had at Alyeska even if she returned to Anchorage.
Culture as healing
No one asserted that she quit her job and moved to the village to evade a hefty child support obligation. Both sides noted that reconnecting with her culture benefited her, and during summer visits, her child. The mother said that one of the main reasons she moved was that Stebbins is a dry village, and living there helped her stay sober.
She immersed herself in subsistence life and Native dance, she said at a July 2013 child support court hearing. Dance was an expression of Yup'ik religion before Christian missionaries came to the region and she "found that Eskimo dancing is very, very spiritual and healing in making a connection with our ancestors," according to a recap in the dissenting opinion. Winfree said the main ruling infringed on her religious rights.
Her relatives were from Stebbins and she wanted her daughter to experience village life, too.
Guidi told her in court that he didn't question her sincerity or the value of connecting with her cultural roots. But he found her decision was only "admirable in an abstract sense," according to the dissenting opinion. She was "essentially taking a retreat from reality."
Think if a non-Native person wanted to join an ashram in India and live in a mountainous retreat, unable to provide financial support for their child, he said.
Not a fair example, Winfree said in the dissent.
"This hypothetical and the court's other unfortunate comparisons to joining a monastery or going to a 'Tibetan retreat' serve only to trivialize Alaska Natives' way of life," the justice wrote. "Contrary to the superior court's analogy, Alaska Natives' cultural, religious, and spiritual connection to their tribes, their lands, and their subsistence activities are a normal way of life, not an escape from normal life."
Lyon and her daughter have since left Stebbins.