Check out this cert petition filed yesterday. It’s from our shop, so we’re not going to be commenting much.
The issue is one that the Supreme Court has recently expressed great interest in, but the last time it was before the Court a few years ago, the Justices concluded that the issue wasn’t presented as well as it might have been and decided to wait for the next case.
Well, here’s the next case.
The issue is the scope of an Indian nation’s sovereign immunity from lawsuits. The usual rule when it comes to property-related disputes like quiet title actions, is that governments don’t really have immunity from such cases when the property in question is outside of that government’s jurisdiction. In those cases, the government is treated like any other litigant.
Here, however, the Washington Supreme Court held that the Stillguamish Tribe was immune from awhat looks like a fairly straightforward quiet title action in a Washington court because Congress has not expressly determined that the Tribe cannot assert immunity. This is greater immunity than any other government on earth may assert.
Here’s the Question Presented:
The common-law immovable-property rule provides that sovereigns are not immune from suits relating to real property located in a foreign jurisdiction. In Upper Skagit Indian Tribe v. Lundgren, 584 U.S. 554 (2018), this Court left open the question of whether the immovable-property rule applies to an Indian tribe’s assertion of rights in nontrust, non-reservation real property. Id. at 559-61.
The question presented is:
Under the immovable-property rule, may a party sue an Indian tribe, without the latter’s consent, in a State court to quiet title to real property located in that State but which is not within the boundaries of the tribe’s reservation and is not held in trust by the United States?
Stay tuned for more.