## Facts

- Police obtained and executed a search warrant at Steven A. Landers’s residence based on an anonymous tip that he was growing marijuana.
- Officers seized marijuana plants, production equipment, and other personal property.
- While Landers’s criminal case was pending, the Anchorage Police Department stored and later disposed of some seized personal property without notice to Landers.
- Among the disposed items were photographs and videotapes; Landers asserted they included family and personal images and recordings.
- Landers filed a civil action seeking damages and relief under theories including inadequate bailment, trespass, and conversion.
- Before trial, the Municipality obtained an order excluding evidence of Landers’s sentimental or emotional attachment to the photographs and videotapes.
- The case proceeded to a jury trial under an approach that treated damages as limited to fair market value; the jury awarded damages less than the Municipality’s prior settlement offer.
- Landers appealed, challenging the exclusion of sentimental-value evidence and the measure of damages for photographs and videotapes with little or no market value.

## Issues

1. Whether a plaintiff may recover damages based on sentimental or emotional value for the loss of personal items such as photographs and videotapes.
2. Whether limiting damages to fair market value is proper when the lost items have negligible or no meaningful market value.
3. What measure of damages applies to such items, and whether the jury instructions required a new trial on damages.

## Decision

- The Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the pretrial exclusion of evidence offered solely to prove sentimental or emotional value.
- The court held that fair market value is not an adequate damages measure for unique personal items with little or no market value, such as family photographs and personal videotapes.
- The court adopted a “value to the owner” measure for such property, excluding purely sentimental or emotional value but allowing proof based on objective considerations.
- The court vacated the damages determination as to the photographs and videotapes and remanded for a new trial limited to damages for those items under the new standard.

## Legal Principles

- When personal property has little or no fair market value, damages may be measured by the item’s value to the owner rather than by strict market value.
- “Value to the owner” must rest on objective indicia (e.g., original cost, cost and difficulty of replacement, nature and expected duration of use, and the item’s contribution to the owner’s convenience or enjoyment).
- Purely sentimental or emotional attachment is not compensable and may be excluded as speculative.
- Jury instructions that confine recovery to fair market value for items with negligible market value may require a new trial on damages when the correct measure is “value to the owner.”

## Conclusion

Alaska law does not permit recovery for purely sentimental or emotional value, but it also does not restrict damages to fair market value when that measure is meaningless for unique personal items; instead, damages may be awarded based on objectively supported “value to the owner,” requiring a new trial on damages for the lost photographs and videotapes.


Landers v. Municipality of Anchorage, 915 P.2d 614 (Alaska 1996)