The Tenth Circuit dismissed an appeal by the Southern Ute Tribe of a court order “which found in favor of the HHS approach as to the start date of the contract and to specifics regarding funding of the self-determination contract’s ancillary costs.” Here is the opinion in Southern Ute Tribe v. Leavitt.
Tenth Circuit
Riggs v. San Juan County — Appellate Brief
Once again, this long-running case heads back to the Tenth Circuit. Here is the opening salvo — all 645 pages (about 8 MB) — riggs-ca10-brief
Counsel for appellants may be heading for trouble for filing a frivolous appeal (see my paper here). Who knows?
HRI, Inc. v. EPA — Dependent Indian Community Determination
A split panel of the Tenth Circuit concluded that the EPA was within its authority to find that a checkerboarded area of northwestern New Mexico was Indian Country for Safe Drinking Water Act purposes. Here is the opinion.
Here are just some of the many briefs filed in this case (I think I got all the important ones):
national-mining-assoc-amicus-brief
CA10 Decides Clean Air Act Case re: Navajo Nation
The case is Arizona Public Service Company v. EPA (opinion). An excerpt:
Arizona Public Service Company (“APS”), operator and majority owner of the Four Corners Power Plant (“Plant”), and Sierra Club, Diné CARE, Diné for the C-Aquifer, and San Juan Citizens Alliance (collectively “Environmentalists”) challenge a regulation promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”). The regulation at issue is known as a source-specific, federal implementation plan (“federal plan”) and was enacted pursuant to sections 301(a)and (d)(4) of the Clean Air Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 7601(a) and (d)(4). The federal plan limits particular air emissions from the Plant. We have jurisdiction pursuant to section 307(b)(1) of the Act, 42 U.S.C. § 7607(b)(1). Because all parties agreethat the federal plan provision pertaining to fugitive dust should be remanded, see infra Part II, we do not address this emissions limit in our discussion of the facts. We grant the EPA’s motion for voluntary remand and grant in part and deny in part the petitions for review.
Here are the materials:
Barrett v. United States — Tribal Trust Funds Paid to Subject to Federal Income Tax
Here is the opinion from the Tenth Circuit. The lower court materials are here. An excerpt:
John A. Barrett, Jr. (“Barrett”) filed suit under 28 U.S.C. § 1346(a) against the United States seeking refund of the federal income taxes, penalties, and interest paid by him pursuant to an Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) assessment for the tax year ending December 31, 2001. Barrett timely appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the United States. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm the district court’s ruling that the salary paid to Barrett as chairman of the Citizen Potawatomi Tribe (the “Tribe”) was not exempt from federal income tax. We also affirm the district court’s ruling on the accuracy-related penalty.
Tenth Circuit briefs are here:
Tenth Circuit Briefing in Important Quiet Title Act Case
The case is Sac and Fox Nation v. Salazar, and is in the Tenth Circuit. Since Carcieri v. Salazar, for a whole bunch of tribes, the Quiet Title Act (QTA) has become a terribly important statute. As readers will recall, the Act expressly preserves the federal government’s sovereign immunity in cases challenging title to Indian trust lands.
Sac and Fox, which involves the Secretary’s taking into trust of the so-called Shriner Tract in Kansas on behalf of the Oklahoma Wyandotte community, is perhaps one of the more ruthless applications of federal sovereign immunity, in that the parties and the courts in prior years had sought to avoid the application of the QTA by keeping open a case even after the land had been taken into trust. When the district court mistakenly closed the case, forcing the plaintiffs to refile, the QTA kicked in with a vengance, forcing the district court to dismiss (see lower court materials here).
Barrett v. United States Briefing in CA10
Here are the briefs in Barrett v. United States, to be heard by the Tenth Circuit:
Lower court materials, including the opinion, are here in an earlier post.
Murphy v. Kickapoo Tribe — CA10 Affirms Dismissal of Employment Claims
Here is the unpublished opinion. An excerpt:
Terry Murphy and Roger Lackey brought breach of contract, retaliatory discharge, and fraud claims against the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma (“the Tribe”) in the United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma. Their claims were dismissed by the district court for lack of jurisdiction based on tribal sovereign immunity. We affirm the dismissal because the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction to consider the plaintiffs’ claims, which arise solely under state law.
Cohen v. Winkelman — Tenth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of ICRA Claim against Tribal College
Here is the opinion, unpublished, from the Tenth Circuit. The court affirmed the dismissal of the claim, which was a claim of wrongful employment termination, on the basis of tribal sovereign immunity. The court specifically rejected the so-called Dry Creek Lodge exception.
Tenth Circuit Affirms Immunity for Tribal Business Arms
In Native American Distributing v. Seneca-Cayuga Tobacco Co., the Tenth Circuit affirmed a district court order dismissing a claim against the company, a wholly owned business of the Seneca-Cayuga Indian Tribe. A closer question was whether the tribe’s officers might be individually liable under Ex parte Young, but the plaintiffs did not properly plead a claim against them in their individual capacities.
Here are the briefs.
And the opinion: native-american-distributing-ca10-opinion
Turtle Talk 
You must be logged in to post a comment.