Officials of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians recently filed a motion to dismiss the State of Michigan’s most recent suit regarding the tribe’s efforts to develop a casino in Lansing, Michigan. The issue involves the tribe’s ongoing efforts to have Lansing parcels taken into federal trust in order to open a casino.
After applying to the U.S. Department of Interior, the state sued to stop the land-trust action in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan in September 2012. The District Court initially ruled in favor of the state, but the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that injunction.
The Sixth Circuit also dismissed the state’s original claims because those claims depended on uncertain future events, and because due to Michigan vs. Bay Mills, federal law did not trump tribal sovereign immunity. The tribe and the state jointly agreed to allow the state to bring new claims against individual tribal officers in an amended pleading.
In its amended complaint, the state dropped the tribe as a party to the suit and instead listed individual tribal officers as defendants. The state claimed that each tribal officer’s conduct related to the tribe’s land-trust efforts would result in a breach of the Tribal-State Gaming Compact. The state wants the court to order the tribal officials to withdraw the tribe’s land-into-trust applications and related submissions.
The Defendant’s Brief in Support of Motion to Dismiss Amended Complaint filed by the tribe claims each officer has sovereign immunity when conducting official tribal business, and also that the tribe must be joined to any lawsuit involving its gaming compact. However, the Sixth Circuit ruled that the tribe’s sovereign immunity would bar the current lawsuit until such immunity is otherwise waived or abrogated by the actions of the Tribe; that is unlikely to be found unless or until the tribe actually begins Class III gaming in violation of its gaming compact with the state.
A hearing on the tribe’s motion to dismiss has been scheduled for Wednesday, June 17 by the District Court.
