New Mexico Court of Appeals Decision on State Worker’s Comp Jurisdiction in Indian Country

Here is the opinion in Antonio v. Inn of the Mountain Gods Resort.

An excerpt:

Michael Antonio (Worker) appeals from  an order of dismissal entered by the Workers’ Compensation Administration (WCA) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.  On appeal, Worker alleges that (1) the WCA erred in determining that Worker’s injury occurred on the Mescalero Apache Tribe reservation (Tribe) and that the Tribe was not conducting business within the State of New Mexico; and (2) the WCA had jurisdiction by default because the Tribe did not have a workers’ compensation program in effect at the time of Worker’s injury, and the compensation that was provided to Worker was not as good as the compensation required by the New Mexico Workers’ Compensation Act.  We conclude that the WCA did not have jurisdiction over the Tribe because the Tribe did not expressly waive sovereign immunity and, therefore, the WCA’s order reached the right result for the wrong reasons.  See Cordova v. World Fin. Corp. of N.M., 2009-NMSC-021, ¶ 18, 146 N.M. 256,208 P.3d 901 (noting that we may affirm on grounds not relied upon if those grounds do not require us to look beyond the factual allegations that were raised and considered below).  Weaffirm.