For several years California collected more than million from the Pauma Band of Luiseño Mission Indians under false pretenses, claiming that it had to charge the tribe more because it didn’t have enough slot machine licenses to go around. Now it has to pay the money back.
The exact amount that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered the Golden State to pay was $36.3 million. Last week Governor Jerry Brown signed the bill, SB 1187, authorizing the expenditure that his predecessor Arnold Schwarzenegger brought on the state with a compact it forced on the Pauma band in 2003.
Schwarzenegger used that money to engorge the General Fund, much as he squeezed money out of other gaming tribes by pressuring them to sign gaming compacts that greatly favored the state.
But the Pauma tribe paid the fees for the privilege of deploying hundreds of new slot machines, paying $7.75 million per year, instead of the $315,000 that it had originally paid each year, until after several years, it decided to challenge the fees in court.
The judge in the case, Richard Tallman, wrote, “Since this misrepresentation induced the Pauma Band Of Luiseno Mission Indians Of The Pauma And Yuima Reservation to enter into the much more expensive 2004 amendment, the tribe is entitled to rescission of the amendment and restitution for the $36.2 million in overpayments made to the state.”
California has battled this case for years, until early this year when it lost its final bid to appeal the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case.
