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Eighth Circuit: Ordinarily, State Highway Means State Regulatory Controls

By Eric L. Lipman

In an interesting opinion issued on Friday, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held that the Tribal Court of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians "lacked jurisdiction over a suit against a non-Indian, nonmember of the Tribe arising from an automobile accident on a state highway within the reservation."

The case arose out of a December 2000 automobile accident between Chad Nord, a non-Indian, and Donald Kelly, a member of the Red Lake Band. The accident occurred on a stretch of Minnesota Highways 1 and 89, located within the boundaries of the Red Lake Indian Reservation.

Filing a suit in Tribal Court, Kelly sought damages from Nord, Nord's father and the family business that owned the truck. The Nords, sought to dismiss the suit for lack of jurisdiction, and filed a parallel declaratory judgment action in federal court requesting a declaration to the same effect.

Both the Tribal Court and the Red Lake Court of Appeals determined that there was jurisdiction over the Nords and the personal injury suit; while the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota expressed a contrary view. Affirming the District Court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Nords, the appellate panel observed:

[W]e cannot agree with the assertion that ? the Band's ability to regulate and to exercise adjudicatory authority over nonmembers on the highway is important to its tribal sovereignty. The Band exercised its sovereignty by consenting to a right-of-way that permitted the State to construct and maintain a public highway on its reservation, without specifically reserving any regulatory or adjudicatory authority over nonmembers using the highway. Again, as long as the highway remains part of the State's highway system, the Red Lake Band has lost its "right of absolute and exclusive use and occupation, [which] implies the loss of regulatory jurisdiction over the use of the land by others."

The panel's complete analysis is accessible here.

Full post as published by Within the Scope on April 07, 2008 (boomark / email).