On February 27, 2024, the District Court for the Eastern District of California entered an order finding that California did not negotiate a Class III gaming compact in good faith with Plaintiff Alturas Indian Rancheria...more
On February 29, 2024, the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion in Lexington Insurance Co. v. Smith (Suquamish Tribe). The Court affirmed the tribal court’s subject-matter jurisdiction over Lexington pursuant to the Tribe’s...more
3/8/2024
/ Appeals ,
Dismissal With Prejudice ,
Federal Court Litigation ,
Insurance Industry ,
Jurisdiction ,
Lack of Jurisdiction ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Reservation of Rights ,
SCOTUS ,
Subject Matter Jurisdiction ,
Surplus Lines Insurance ,
Tribal Courts
On February 16, 2024, the United States Department of the Interior (“DOI”) issued revisions to its regulations for how it reviews Class III Tribal-State Gaming Compacts under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (“IGRA”). The...more
On January 31, 2024, the United States Department of the Interior issued gaming procedures under the Federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (“IGRA”) for five tribes located in California: Blue Lake Rancheria, Chemehuevi Indian...more
In a contract dispute between CHR Solutions Inc. and Gila River Telecommunications Inc., a business entity wholly owned and operated by the Gila River Indian Community (“GRIC”), the question of tribal sovereign immunity and...more
In a recent decision, the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in the case of Sipp v. Buffalo Thunder Inc. that state courts do not have the authority to adjudicate tort claims filed by casino visitors. The unanimous decision...more
1/23/2024
/ Appeals ,
Bodily Injury ,
Casinos ,
Damages ,
Immunity ,
Indian Gaming ,
Indian Gaming Regulation Act ,
Jurisdiction ,
State Law Tort Claims ,
Termination Clauses ,
Tribal Lands ,
Tribal-State Gaming Compacts
The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), in an effort to improve and streamline the tribal land acquisition application process, recently announced changes to the pertinent federal regulations, 25 CFR Part 151. Prior to the...more
In an order filed on June 27, 2023, the Arizona District Court determined that a wireless provider co-owned by the Navajo Nation was not immune from suit in federal court. In Tsosie v. N.T.U.A. Wireless LLC, et al.,...more
On June 15, 2023, the United States Supreme Court held that “the Bankruptcy Code unambiguously abrogates the sovereign immunity of all governments, including federally recognized Indian tribes.”1 In other words, Native...more
On February 10, 2023, the Honorable Judge Angel Kelley of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts ruled that the U.S. Department of the Interior acted legally when it took into trust 321 acres of land (two noncontiguous...more
The Rincon Band of Luiseño Indians (“Rincon”) in California has taken a historical step under its federally approved Class III Secretarial Gaming Procedures to withdraw from California’s state oversight of its tribal gaming...more
A three-panel Arizona Court of Appeals ("the panel”) unanimously ruled on January 10, 2023, that, under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, the gross proceeds from work performed under federal contracts on Native American...more
On January 13, 2023, the Supreme Court granted the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians’ Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to resolve the split of circuits on whether Section 106 of the Bankruptcy Code...more
On November 16, the Solicitor for the U.S. Department of the Interior issued Opinion M-37076, clarifying that the Secretary of the Interior does in fact have authority to acquire land in trust within the State of Alaska. The...more
On September 15, 2022, the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island (“Court” or “District Court”) entered a significant declaratory judgment addressing the Department of Justice’s (“DOJ”) historically...more
On July 28, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (“Court” or “Ninth Circuit”) issued a significant decision addressing the Class III gaming compact negotiation process between a state and a tribe as required by the Federal...more
In a 5-4 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, on June 29, that the Federal Government and the State have concurrent jurisdiction to prosecute non-Indians who commit crimes against...more
The Executive Director of the Texas Racing Commission has issued a policy statement requiring all occupational and business licensees to obtain approval for the import and export of pari-mutuel simulcast signals. The...more
In a 5-4 vote on Wednesday, June 15, the United States Supreme Court resolved a longstanding dispute about the ability of Texas to control gaming conducted by the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo Tribe (the “Tribe”).
The case...more
In a 6-3 decision, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a Native American defendant who was previously prosecuted in a special federal administrative tribal court can be charged in a federal court for the same incident...more
Deepening a split of circuits, the First Circuit Court of Appeals held that the Bankruptcy Code waived the sovereign immunity of Native American Tribes. The May 6, 2022 opinion by Judge Sandra L. Lynch sided with the Ninth...more
On April 26, 2022, the Arizona Supreme Court issued a significant unanimous decision addressing the applicability of a state ad valorem property tax on a power plant located on Indian land. The Arizona Supreme Court held that...more
On June 25, in a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court held that Alaska Native Corporations (“ANCs”), are entitled to COVID-19 relief funds; solidifying that ANCs qualify as tribes. The ruling in Yellen v. Confederated Tribes of...more
On June 21, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that the district court properly dismissed the claims of Big Sandy Rancheria Enterprises (“Big Sandy”), a federally chartered tribal corporation of the Western...more
On June 7, 2021, the United States Supreme Court denied Seneca County’s (New York) petition for certiorari, thus leaving in place the Second Circuit’s decision in Cayuga Indian Nation of New York v. Seneca County, New York,...more