Alaska: Anti-SLAPP Laws

The short answer

Alaska does not have an anti-SLAPP statute. There's no special motion to
strike or dismiss, no automatic stay of discovery, and no SLAPP-specific
right to recover attorney's fees. Every major national tracker of
anti-SLAPP laws — the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the
Institute for Free Speech, and the Public Participation Project — lists
Alaska among the small remaining group of states with no such law, and no
bill has been introduced to create one in the current legislature. A
defendant sued in Alaska over speech on a matter of public interest
relies on two general-purpose tools instead: a constitutional conditional
privilege that requires a defamation plaintiff to prove "actual malice,"
and Alaska's unusual court rule that shifts a share of attorney's fees to
the winning side in essentially every civil case, not just speech cases.

Requirements one by one

Governing law

There is no anti-SLAPP statute in the Alaska Statutes, and none has ever
been enacted. No bill creating a special motion to strike or dismiss for
speech-targeting lawsuits — including a version of the Uniform Public
Expression Protection Act adopted by a growing number of states since
2024 — has been introduced in the current 34th Legislature (2025-2026) or
found in any earlier session.

What speech or conduct would be protected

Not applicable as a statutory matter — there is no statute defining
protected activity. Alaska case law fills part of the gap with ordinary
defamation doctrine: the Alaska Supreme Court has held that a defamatory
statement is conditionally privileged if it concerns a matter of public
interest, meaning the plaintiff loses unless they can prove the defendant
acted with actual malice. This is a substantive defense inside a
defamation case, not a standalone SLAPP protection, and it only helps a
defendant when the claim is defamation — it doesn't reach other tort
theories a SLAPP plaintiff might use instead, like invasion of privacy or
intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The special motion that doesn't exist

There is no special motion to strike or dismiss a claim based on
protected speech. A defendant must use an ordinary motion to dismiss or a
motion for summary judgment under the Alaska Rules of Civil Procedure, on
the normal civil litigation timeline, with no automatic stay of discovery
while the motion is pending.

Burden of proof

Because there is no anti-SLAPP statute, there is no early, statute-based
burden-shifting test. Where the public-interest privilege applies to a
defamation claim, the plaintiff carries the burden of proving actual
malice — that the defendant made the statement knowing it was false or
with reckless disregard for the truth — but that burden is resolved as
part of winning or losing the case on the merits, not on an expedited
special motion filed early in the litigation.

Attorney's fees

There is no SLAPP-specific fee-shifting rule. Alaska is unusual, though:
Alaska Rule of Civil Procedure 82 requires a fee award to the prevailing
party in essentially every civil case, win or lose the underlying claim,
speech-related or not. In a case with no money judgment — the typical
posture for a dismissed defamation suit — the prevailing party recovers
30% of their reasonable actual attorney's fees if the case went to trial,
or 20% if it was resolved without trial (for example, on summary
judgment). This is a general civil-procedure rule adopted decades before
any anti-SLAPP movement existed, not a substitute purpose-built for
speech cases, and the percentage recovery is usually much smaller than
the full fee award a true anti-SLAPP statute typically provides.

Right to appeal

There is no special interlocutory appeal right tied to a ruling on a
speech-based motion. Ordinary Alaska rules on final judgments and
permissive interlocutory appeals apply, the same as in any other civil
case.

Exemptions

Not applicable — there is no statute to carve exemptions from.

What trips people up

Rule 82 is not an anti-SLAPP substitute, even though it looks
generous. Alaska's prevailing-party fee rule sounds like it should help
a defendant who beats a meritless speech-based lawsuit, but it caps
recovery at 20-30% of actual fees in non-money-judgment cases, applies
identically to every kind of civil case, and doesn't come with an early
dismissal mechanism, a discovery stay, or an appeal right — the features
that actually make anti-SLAPP statutes effective.

The actual-malice privilege only helps in defamation cases. A SLAPP
plaintiff can plead around it by suing for invasion of privacy,
intentional infliction of emotional distress, or interference with
business relations instead of defamation, none of which carry the same
public-interest privilege.

There's no discovery stay while you fight the underlying claim.
Without a special motion, discovery proceeds on the normal timeline
regardless of whether the lawsuit targets protected speech.

Winning early still takes a full motion to dismiss or summary judgment
cycle. There's no expedited hearing requirement, so a meritless case can
take months to resolve even when the defense is strong.

Common questions

Does Alaska have any fast way to get a meritless lawsuit over my speech
thrown out? No. There's no SLAPP-specific procedure. You'd use an
ordinary motion to dismiss or motion for summary judgment, on the normal
timeline, with no guaranteed automatic discovery stay.

If I win a defamation case in Alaska, do I get my attorney's fees back
automatically? You may recover a percentage of your actual fees under
Rule 82 as the prevailing party — but that rule applies in every civil
case, not just speech cases, and it typically covers only 20-30% of your
actual fees in a case with no money judgment, well short of a full fee
award.

Is Alaska likely to pass an anti-SLAPP law soon? There's no way to
know for certain, but there's no current bill and no history of a serious
legislative push, even as most other states have adopted one.

Statutes and sources

• Alaska R. Civ. P. 82(a), (b)(2) — "(a) Allowance to Prevailing
  Party. Except as otherwise provided by law or agreed to by the parties,
  the prevailing party in a civil case shall be awarded attorney's fees
  calculated under this rule. ... (2) In cases in which the prevailing
  party recovers no money judgment, the court shall award the prevailing
  party in a case which goes to trial 30 percent of the prevailing
  party's reasonable actual attorney's fees which were necessarily
  incurred, and shall award the prevailing party in a case resolved
  without trial 20 percent of its actual attorney's fees which were
  necessarily incurred." Source: https://courts.alaska.gov/rules/docs/civ.pdf
  (accessed 2026-07-05).
• Olivit v. City & Borough of Juneau, 171 P.3d 1137 (Alaska 2007) —
  "Actual malice exists when it is proved that the defamatory statement
  was made with knowledge that it was false or with a reckless disregard
  of whether it was false or not." Source:
  https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2637103/olivit-v-city-and-borough-of-juneau/
  (accessed 2026-07-05).