The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Michigan resident David Patchak’s lawsuit against the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians, also known as the Gun Lake Tribe. The high court previously heard the case in 2012 and ruled that Patchak could proceed with his 2008 lawsuit claiming construction of the Gun Lake’s casino on tribal land would increase traffic and raise taxes in his hometown, Wayland, Michigan.
However, in 2014, Congress passed the Gun Lake Trust Land Reaffirmation Act, which codified the government’s decision to take the land into trust and banned any lawsuit “relating to the land” from being filed in federal court. Patchak appealed to the Supreme Court again after the D.C. Circuit affirmed its most recent dismissal.
Now the Supreme Court is determining whether the Gun Lake Trust land Reaffirmation Act was constitutional. Indications suggest the justices probably would side with the Gun Lake Tribe over Patchak.
