Here:
Tonasket v Sargent Cert Petition
Questions presented:
1. Whether Indian tribal immunity from suit allows the Indian tribe, a price fixing competitor, to be immune from federal anti-trust laws?
2. Whether the officials of an Indian tribe that include the tribe’s tobacco tax administrator, acting in violation of federal law, can be protected by tribal immunity when prospective relief is sought?
Lower court materials here.
Here is the unpublished opinion.
Briefs:
From the opinion:
This is an interlocutory appeal asserting jurisdiction in this court under the collateral order doctrine. The underlying claims relate to the Washoe Tribe’s decision to take custody of the plaintiff’s grandchildren due to allegations of abuse by the grandchildren’s mother (the plaintiff’s daughter). After pursuing tribal remedies, the grandmother, Ms. Fred, filed suit against the Tribe in federal district court. The district court dismissed for failure to state a claim with leave to amend. The Tribe appeals the district court’s dismissal in its favor because the dismissal was without prejudice, arguing that the complaint should have been dismissed with prejudice for three reasons: 1) failure to exhaust tribal court remedies; 2) tribal sovereign immunity; and 3) lack of subject matter jurisdiction.
Prior posts on this case here and here.
Here are the materials in City of Glendale v. United States:
Arizona & Glendale En Banc Petition
The court’s syllabus:
The panel withdrew its prior opinion and published a superseding opinion affirming in part, and reversing and remanding in part, the district court’s summary judgment in favor of federal defendants in an action by the City of Glendale seeking to set aside the United States Department of Interior’s decision to accept in trust, for the benefit of the Tohono O’odham Nation, a 54-acre parcel of land known as Parcel 2 on which the Nation hoped to build a resort and casino.
The panel held the Gila Bend Indian Reservation Lands Replacement Act, read as a whole, was unambiguous and that § 6(c) of the Act created a cap only on land held in trust for
the Nation, not on total land acquisition by the tribe under the Act. The panel held that § 6(d) of Act was ambiguous as to whether Parcel 2, located on a county island fully surrounded by city land, was within the City of Glendale’s corporate limits. The panel held further that the Secretary of the Interior was mistaken in concluding that the term has a plain meaning, and remanded for the agency to consider the question afresh in light of the ambiguity the panel saw. Finally, the panel held that passage of the Act was within congressional power under the Indian Commerce Clause and was not trumped by the Tenth Amendment
News coverage here.
Previous panel materials here.
Here is the opinion in Cahto Tribe of the Laytonville Rancheria v. Dutschke.
The court’s syllabus:
The panel reversed the district court’s judgment affirming the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs’ decision in favor of federal defendants in an action brought by the Cahto Tribe of the Laytonville Rancheria, seeking to set aside the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ decision to direct the Tribe to place the names of certain disenrolled individuals back on its membership rolls.
The panel held that the Tribe’s governing documents did not provide for an appeal to the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Tribe’s disenrollment action.
Briefs are here.
Here:
The petition is here. No chance for a grant. I wouldn’t have even filed an opposition….
Here is the opinion in Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands v. EPA.
From the court’s syllabus:
The panel denied a petition for review, and upheld a decision of the Environmental Protection Agency granting two air permits authorizing exploratory drilling operations in the Arctic Ocean by a drillship and its associated fleet of support vessels.The panel upheld the EPA’s statutory and regulatory interpretations. Specifically, the panel held that the Clean Air Act is ambiguous as to the applicability of the best available control emissions to support vessels not attached to an Outer Continental Shelf source, and concluded under Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. NRDC, Inc., 467 U.S. 837 (1984), deference that the EPA’s construction of the statute was permissible and reasonable. The panel also held that the EPA’s grant of a 500 meter ambient air exemption was not plainly erroneous or inconsistent with the EPA’s regulations.
Related opinion from last December here.
Turtle Talk 
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