The case is In Re DeCora. It involves a Ho-Chunk member declaring bankruptcy and whether the Ho-Chunk Nation Bank’s interest in the member’s per cap proceeds were secured. The opinion is a little entertaining, beginning with a reference to Frank Zappa:
Musician and satirist Frank Zappa once quipped that “Communism doesn’t work because people like to own stuff.” Whether this is an accurate take on geopolitical realities or not, the concept of personal property rights is certainly deeply ingrained into American culture and jurisprudence. In America, people may own all the stuff they can afford, and they can sell or give their stuff to someone else. Even when life doesn’t take Visa (or some other unsecured form of credit), people find ways to use their stuff as collateral for loans so that they can run out and buy more stuff. The present case involves competing interests in an intangible bit of stuff that this Court has encountered before-namely, a debtor’s right to receive tribal per capita distributions from tribal gaming revenues. The debtor used his right to future distributions as collateral for a loan so that he could afford, among other things, a new car. The question is whether the creditor took sufficient steps to protect its security interest from challenge.
The court also cites to numerous Ho-Chunk tribal court opinions. For example:
Third, the tribal courts of the Ho-Chunk Nation have themselves indicated that tribal members have a right to per capita distributions, if and when they are made, as long as that member is on the rolls of the Ho-Chunk Nation. See Kedrowski, 284 B.R. at 448-49; Hendrickson v. HCN Enrollment, CV 99-10 (Ho-Chunk Nation Trial Court 1999).
Here are the materials:
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