Here is the opinion in In re Welfare of R.A.J., in which the Minnesota Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court’s vacature of its own order to transfer a case to tribal court. The state court had denied efforts by the Leech Lake Band to transfer the case to tribal court, only transferring the case when the tribe agreed to certain conditions. We wonder whether a state court can place conditions outside of the scope of ICWA in order to agree to transfer a case to tribal court, a case it probably should transfer in the first place. We also wonder how a state court can re-acquire jurisdiction under ICWA without tribal consent.
The court’s syllabus:
The district court had jurisdiction to vacate its order transferring a child-welfare proceeding to tribal court before tribal court proceedings commenced, when the district court found that “misrepresentations were intentionally and wrongfully advanced [to the district court] to gain [its] agreement to transfer” the proceeding.
And an excerpt detailing the “misrepresentations” leading to the vacature of the court’s transfer:
Turtle Talk 