Here:
Questions presented:
Whether Indian tribal courts have jurisdiction to adjudicate civil tort claims against nonmembers, including as a means of regulating the conduct of nonmembers who enter into consensual relationships with a tribe or its members?
Lower court materials here.
The court also voted 9-5 to deny the en banc petition: CA5 Order Denying Dolgencorp En Banc Petition
En banc petition materials here.
Panel materials here.
Lower court decision and materials here.
Scott Wheat and Amber Penn-Roco have written a short paper, “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Personal Liability Exposure for Tribal Officials in the Wake of Maxwell v. County of San Diego (PDF).
An excerpt:
From firefighting in California, to clearing mudslides in Washington State, tribal governments routinely respond when calamity strikes: both on and off the reservation. Unfortunately, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ recent decision in Maxwell v. County of San Diego, 708 F.3d 1075 (9th Cir. 2013), creates personal liability exposure for the tribal officials carrying out these good deeds. The Supreme Court’s suggested “special justification” for allowing off-reservation tort victims to sue tribal governments in Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community, 572 U.S. ___ (2014), only complicates matters. This article provides a brief background of the Ninth Circuit’s prior holdings concerning the extension of tribal sovereign immunity to tribal employees, a summary of the Maxwell decision, a discussion of the potential implications of the decision, and an overview of precautionary measures to limit Maxwell personal liability exposure.
Here is the petition in Dupris v. Proctor:
Questions presented:
1. Whether this Court should resolve a split among the circuit courts of appeal, created by the Ninth Circuit panel decision in this matter, as to whether federal agents have “discretion” to arrest an individual without probable cause, for purposes of sovereign immunity under the “discretionary function” doctrine of the Federal Tort Claims Act?
2. Whether this Court should resolve a split among the circuit courts of appeal as to whether a law enforcement officer’s pre-arrest consultation with a prosecutor, standing alone, entitles the officer to qualified immunity?
3. Given the federal agents’ testimony that there were not any “positive identifications” of Petitioners, contradictory to what the agents told the tribal prosecutor, whether this Court should remand pursuant to this Court’s recent holding in Tolan v. Cotton, — U.S. –, 134 S.Ct. 1861 (2014), to ensure that the Court of Appeals properly viewed all evidence in the light most favorable to the Petitioners?
Lower court materials here.
Here is the petition in Marcussen v. Sebelius:
Marcussen v Sebelius Cert Petition
Questions Presented:
1) Whether the Rooker Feldman doctrine should be overruled for denying all judicial relief by removing the subject matter jurisdiction of the federal courts to hear any civil action brought against federally mandated statutes enforced in the state courts.
2) Whether Congress has the authority to adopt laws intended to be primarily or exclusively enforced in the state courts.
Yesterday the Court decided CTS Corp. v. Waldburger (non-federal-Indian-law case). The Court held that injured parties cannot bring claims against corporations that pollute if the claim falls outside of a state statute of repose, even if the claim would be otherwise preserved by a federal law. Generally, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA) pre-empts state statutes of limitation, because Congress wanted to preserve injuries from pollution that can sometimes take years to discover. However, North Carolina also has a state statute of repose, which bars claims brought more than 10 years after the last culpable act. Since CERCLA only specifically identifies statutes of limitations and not repose, the Court found the claimants are unable to bring their damages claim against the company (which sold the land in 1987).
In her dissent with Justice Breyer, Justice Ginsburg would preserve the claim, finding Congress’s intent was to preserve these claims, regardless of the name of the state limitations statute.
Not only will this decision harm the landowners involved in the case, but those injured by contaminated wells at Camp Lejeune (a Marine base also in North Carolina), who currently have claims pending in the 11th Circuit. Article here from right after oral arguments (though it misjudges J. Kagan, who joined the majority in the case).
Here:
Filed right before the decision in Michigan v. Bay Mills came out, so it doesn’t take that case’s outcome into consideration.
Here:
The Court granted the petition here.
SCOTUSblog’s page on the case is here. Petitioner’s brief is here: Petitioner’s Brief
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