SCOTUS Grants LDF v. Coughlin

Here is the order.

Cert stage briefs here.

Merits Stage Briefs in Arizona v. Navajo Nation/Dept. of the Interior v. Navajo Nation

Here:

All this water is Navajo.

SCTOUS Grants United States and Arizona Petitions in Navajo Water Case

Here was yesterday’s order.

Prior post here.

Thinking if SCOTUS had some good frybread, they’d let Indian country have the nice things we deserve, like an enforceable duty of protection.

Slockish v. Dept. of Transportation Cert Petition

Here:

Question presented:

Whether the Ninth Circuit’s mootness ruling warrants summary reversal where the panel clearly misapprehended governing law on mootness and on the authority of federal courts to order equitable relief affecting nonparties.

Lower court materials here.

Lac Du Flambeau Ojibwe Cert Petition in Bankruptcy Act/Sovereign Immunity Case

Here is the petition in Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians v. Coughlin:

Question presented:

Whether the Bankruptcy Code expresses unequivocally Congress’s intent to abrogate the sovereign immunity of Indian tribes.

Lower court materials here.

Update:

Cert Stage Materials in Lopez v. Quaempts

Here:

Questions presented:

  1. Whether this Court, to allow for more complete state court tort remedies against individual tribal employees, as indicated in Lewis v. Clarke, 137 S. Ct. 1285 (2017), should clarify existing tribal sovereign immunity law to allow tort vic- tims to sue a tribe based on vicarious lia- bility when a tribe ratifies individual tribal employees’ actions giving rise to the state tort claims.
  2. Whether the lower court’s refusal to rec- ognize a tribe’s ratification of tribal em- ployees’ allegedly tortious acts, as an express waiver of sovereign immunity im- permissibly interferes with states’ rights to award remedies to tort victims.

Lower court materials here.

Goony

Cert Petition in Big Horn County Electric Cooperative Inc. v. Big Man

Here:

Question presented:

Whether an Indian tribal court has subject-matter jurisdiction to adjudicate a tribally created claim as an “other means” of regulating a nonmember federally funded and federally regulated electric cooperative tasked with providing electrical service to all customers within its service territory, including tribal members on Indian reservations?

Lower court materials here.

Update:

Dept. of Justice [almost certainly over Interior’s objections] and Arizona File Cert Petitions in Navajo Nation Water Rights Trust Suit

Here is the petition in Dept. of the Interior v. Navajo Nation:

Question presented:

Whether the federal government owes the Navajo Nation an affirmative, judicially enforceable fiduciary duty to assess and address the Navajo Nation’s need for water from particular sources, in the absence of any substantive source of law that expressly establishes such a duty.

Here is the petition and the partial acquiescence by Justice in Arizona v. Navajo Nation:

Questions presented:

I. Does the Ninth Circuit Opinion, allowing the Nation to proceed with a claim to enjoin the Secretary to develop a plan to meet the Nation’s water needs and manage the mainstream of the LBCR so as not to in- terfere with that plan, infringe upon this Court’s re- tained and exclusive jurisdiction over the allocation of water from the LBCR mainstream in Arizona v. California?
II. Can the Nation state a cognizable claim for breach of trust consistent with this Court’s holding in Jicarilla based solely on unquantified implied rights to water under the Winters Doctrine?

Lower court materials here.