Eleventh Circuit Reaffirms Tribal Sovereign Immunity

The case is Freemanville Water System, Inc. v. Poarch Band of Creek Indians (opinion). Our post on the district court case is here. An excerpt:

After a hard look at the statute the only thing that is unmistakably clear to us is that the statutory language does not make it unmistakably clear that Congress intended to abrogate tribal sovereign immunity from lawsuits claiming a violation of the anti-curtailment provision [of the Consolidated Farm and Rural Development Act]. See Kimel, 528 U.S. at 73, 120 S. Ct. at 640.

And here are the appellate briefs:

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Seneca v. USET — Improper Influence Case

The Eleventh Circuit held that Dean Seneca, a former employee of the Office of Tribal Affairs in the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, failed to exhaust his administrative remedies under the FTCA before suing the US and USET. He was reprimanded after allegedly making improper communications with USET over the text of proposed Congressional testimony.

seneca-v-uset-ca11-opinion

seneca-brief

US Brief