Ah, Rule 19! Here is California’s cert petition — california-petition-for-cert

Just so everyone knows, I called this YEARS ago! See my “The Comparative Rights of Indispensable Sovereigns.” 🙂

And here are the lower court materials (Rincon Band; Cachil Dehe; and San Pascqual).  And here is our post on Pimentel.

Questions Presented (from the cert petition):

In 1999, the State of California and sixty-one federally recognized tribes entered into virtually identical tribal-state class III gaming compacts (Compacts) under the authority of the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, 25 U.S.C. §§ 2701-2721 (IGRA). The Compacts allow those tribes to operate slot machines if they have been issued licenses for those devices from a prioritized and limited license pool established by the Compacts, or if they have obtained a compact amendment allowing them to operate slot machines without reference to that license pool. The questions presented are:

1. In applying Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19 (Rule 19), may a federal court, consistent with the rule of decision in Republic of the Philippines v. Pimentel, 128 S. Ct. 2180 (2008), utilize the authority it has under Rule 19(b) to safeguard (through the shaping of relief) the legally protected interest of an absent sovereign as a basis for finding that the absent sovereign is not a required party within the meaning of Rule 19(a)?

2. May the asserted ability of a court of appeals to resolve inconsistent district court decisions on the same claim for relief be relied upon to conclude that an absent person need not be joined under Rule 19(a)?