Mealey's Native American Law
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March 30, 2023
Bankruptcy Code Clearly Cancels Tribes’ Sovereign Immunity, Supreme Court Told
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As domestic governments, Indian tribes’ sovereign immunity from suit is revoked in the U.S. Bankruptcy Code as it is for all other governments, even though the word “tribe” is never used in the code, a debtor tells the U.S. Supreme Court in a respondent brief on the merits.
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March 29, 2023
Rail Company Owes Tribe Profits For Willful Trespass, Washington Federal Judge Says
SEATTLE — BNSF Railway Co. owes a Washington Indian tribe the profits it made from willfully trespassing on the tribe’s land by running 100-car trainloads of crude oil across a reservation easement for nearly nine years without permission from the tribe, a federal judge in the state held on remand after a bench trial.
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March 24, 2023
New Mexico High Court Suspends Lawyer For Attacks On Judge In Tribal Water Case
SANTA FE, N.M. — The New Mexico Supreme Court has suspended for at least 18 months an attorney for making “unfounded” statements that a judge presiding over a Native American water rights case had a conflict of interest and might fix the case in favor of the tribe.
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March 24, 2023
10th Circuit: New Mexico Tribe Holds Title To Tract In Volcanic Caldera Preserve
DENVER — A Native American tribe in New Mexico still holds aboriginal title to a tract of land that is now part of a national preserve, the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held in reversing a federal trial court’s finding that the tribe had lost title to the land by not using it continuously through the years.
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March 21, 2023
Native American Group Seeks Intervention In Case Opposing Willow Project Approval
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A Native American organization on March 20 moved to intervene in a lawsuit brought by other Native Americans who oppose the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) decision to allow a hydraulic fracturing development project in the National Petroleum Reserve on Alaska’s North Slope known as the Willow Project. The organization seeking to intervene says it has the right to do so because it represents the community of Nuiqsut, Alaska, the village closest to the project.
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March 21, 2023
9th Circuit Partly Reverses Dismissal Of Claim That Canal Fix Will Hurt Aquifer
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal district court correctly dismissed environmental claims involving a federal repair of a leaky irrigation canal but abused its discretion by not granting a city leave to file an amended complaint, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled.
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March 20, 2023
United States’ Trust Duty For Navajo Nation Water Argued Before Supreme Court
WASHINGTON, D.C. — With the Southwest United States experiencing extreme drought conditions at a time when the average Navajo Nation resident in Arizona uses only 7 gallons of water a day, the federal government needs to exercise its treaty-promised trust duty to the tribe to see if it can obtain water from the lower Colorado River, an attorney for the tribe told the U.S. Supreme Court this morning in a long-running water rights dispute.
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March 20, 2023
Tribal Member’s Supreme Court Petition Over Police Jurisdiction Is Denied
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 20 denied a Native American’s petition for certiorari seeking review of a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals finding that the federal government can use state law to prosecute a tribal member for eluding tribal police on tribal land, which the petitioner said conflicts with high court precedents.
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March 20, 2023
U.S. Must Face Claims Over Delayed Remediation Of PCBs At Surveillance Site
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — On remand from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, a federal judge in Alaska denied the United States’ motion to dismiss allegations that it is liable for the delayed cleanup of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at one of the White Alice Communication System sites used to surveil the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
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March 16, 2023
9th Circuit Revives Alaska’s Claim Over Special Hunt For Natives During Pandemic
SAN FRANCISCO — A challenge by an Alaskan agency to a decision by the federal government to open a subsistence hunt for a Native American village due to the COVID-19 pandemic is not moot, but the state’s challenge to a second order closing a hunting area to the public to aid subsistence hunters during the pandemic is, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held in reversing in part, vacating in part and remanding.
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March 14, 2023
No Federal Jurisdiction For Native American’s Simple Assault Plea, U.S. Judge Rules
DENVER — A federal magistrate judge correctly rejected a plea agreement between a Native American and the United States in a domestic disturbance case because a tribal court is the only venue that has jurisdiction over the agreed-to offense of simple assault in Indian country, a federal judge in Colorado held in overruling objections to the magistrate’s ruling.
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March 09, 2023
Native American Tribes Say Case Challenging National Monuments Order Fails
SALT LAKE CITY — A group of Native American tribes moved to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the state of Utah and two municipalities over the dimensions of Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments, contending that President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s proclamation reestablishing them is consistent with the Antiquities Act and, therefore, the lawsuit challenging the president’s decision fails.
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March 08, 2023
Washington Appeals Court Revives Tribe’s Nuisance Claims Over Hydroelectric Dams
SEATTLE — A Washington Indian tribe’s allegations that Seattle’s promotion of its hydroelectric project as being the “Nation’s Greenest Utility” harms the tribe are pleaded adequately enough for two of its nuisance claims to survive a motion to dismiss, a state appellate court ruled in partly reversing dismissal of the tribe’s suit against the city.
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March 08, 2023
Native American Groups Oppose Fracking Advocates In Case About Drilling Moratorium
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A Native American tribal government and other tribal parties filed a brief in Alaska federal court contending that it should deny a motion for summary judgment sought by hydraulic fracturing advocates who say the Biden administration unlawfully imposed a moratorium on fracking. The tribal government says the fracking proponents’ arguments are “based on fundamental misapprehensions” regarding both executive actions and the analysis conducted by federal agencies.
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March 07, 2023
Tribe Files 3rd Motion For Injunction Against Trinity River Water Plan
FRESNO, Calif. — California’s Hoopa Valley Tribe has asked a federal court to issue a preliminary injunction against a Trinity River water flow plan that the tribe says will come at the expense of a reduced flow for the spring and summer.
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March 07, 2023
Split 10th Circuit Panel Says Tribe Owed Support Costs For Health Care Program
DENVER — A divided 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel on March 6 reversed dismissal of an Arizona Indian tribe’s suit against the government seeking additional federal funding to pay for health care services under the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (ISDEAA), with all three judges coming to different conclusions when interpreting the statute and a majority only agreeing that the tribe wins, but for different reasons.
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March 06, 2023
United States Didn’t Accept Trust Duty For Navajo Nation Water, Supreme Court Told
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Navajo Nation’s attempt to hold the federal government liable for breaching its trust duty to provide water for the tribe, including from the Colorado River, fails because the claim “does not rest on any specific trust duty that the government has expressly accepted,” the government argues in its March 3 reply brief on the merits in the U.S. Supreme Court.
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March 03, 2023
New Jersey Judge Sides With State In Dispute Over Mine Pollution By Ford
HACKENSACK, N.J. — A New Jersey judge largely denied a request by Ford Motor Co. for dismissal of a complaint by state environmental regulators over the discharge of toxic substances at a former mine.
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March 03, 2023
Minnesota Tribe Clears Dismissal Hurdle In Suit Against Land Deal For Mine
DULUTH, Minn. — A Minnesota Indian tribe has standing to challenge the U.S. Forest Service’s exchange of land with a mining company for an open pit copper nickel mine because it has hunting and fishing rights for the land under an 1854 treaty, a federal judge in the state has ruled in denying the mining company’s motion to dismiss the tribe’s complaint.
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February 28, 2023
Oklahoma Gets Win In Tribe’s Challenges To Gaming Compacts With State
OKLAHOMA CITY — Neither Oklahoma’s changes to state laws expanding the availability of lottery games nor its expansion of hours of operation for electronic casino-type games at racetracks violates the gaming compacts the state has with Indian tribes, a federal judge in the state ruled in granting Oklahoma summary judgment on a tribe’s last challenges to the gaming deals.
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February 27, 2023
U.S. Won’t Respond To Tribal Member’s Supreme Court Petition Over Jurisdiction
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal government on Feb. 24 waived its right to respond to a Native American’s petition for U.S. Supreme Court review of a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals holding that the government can use state law to prosecute a tribal member for eluding tribal police on tribal land, which the petitioner says runs afoul of high court precedents.
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February 27, 2023
U.S. Reaches Agreement With Citizen Plaintiffs In Gold King Mine Case
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The federal government announced that it has reached a settlement with two citizen groups in multidistrict litigation over a 2015 mine blowout that polluted the Animas and San Juan rivers.
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February 24, 2023
Tribe Says Question Of Immunity In Bankruptcy Code Is Congress’ Job, Not Courts
WASHINGTON, D.C. — If tribal sovereign immunity is to be stripped from Native Americans in the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, it needs to be done in a clear statement by Congress and not by the parsing of statutory text by the courts, a Wisconsin tribe tells the U.S. Supreme Court in its brief on the merits in a payday lending dispute.
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February 22, 2023
9th Circuit: Trump WOTUS Rule Wasn’t Ruled Unlawful Before Remand For New Rule
SAN FRANCISCO — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Feb. 21 said a federal district court lacked authority to vacate and remand a Trump-era waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule without first holding that it was unlawful.
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February 21, 2023
Judge Denies Tribe’s Motion To Enjoin Changes To Operation Of Central Valley Project
FRESNO, Calif. — A California federal judge denied a motion by a Native American tribe to issue a preliminary injunction against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation) for adopting a new plan governing the release of water from the Central Valley Project without the tribe’s concurrence.