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Dueling Claims to Plain Meaning Divide High Court

By Eric L. Lipman

In an interesting opinion issued on Thursday, a divided Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, Buddie Green, was obliged to receive employment services from her Tribe?s social service office and was not permitted to access these services, alongside non-tribal members, through Aitken County.

Dividing the majority from the dissenters in this case were views on what the plain meaning of the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP) statute provided ? and, interestingly enough, dueling claims that the other bloc of Justices were reading into the statute text that was not there. As Justice Dietzen concluded for the majority: ?According to the dissent, ?the plain language of MFIP entitles Greene to receive employment services through Aitkin County.? The argument rests on the premise that the statute grants to a tribal member the right to ?opt-out? or select whether to receive employment services from the Indian tribe or the County. But section 256J.645, subd. 4, does not contain any language that expressly grants to tribal members either the right to decline receiving employment services through the Tribe or the right to receive those services through the County. Had the legislature intended to provide a tribal member with the right to select where the individual would receive employment services, it would have expressly provided that right.?

In dissent, Justices G. Barry Anderson, Paul Anderson and Alan Page replied: ?While it is true that section 256J.645, subd. 2, requires tribes to 'agree to fulfill the responsibilities provided under the employment services component of MFIP regarding operation of MFIP employment services,' the statute contains no requirement that tribes 'assume' the duty of providing MFIP employment services to the exclusion of counties. Section 256J.645, subd. 2, sets forth what tribes are required to do, but it in no way limits the services to which tribal members are entitled. I would not read this 'assumption' language into the statute.... Had the legislature intended to prohibit tribal members from receiving employment services through their counties, it could have said so. It did not, and it is not our prerogative to read an exclusivity requirement into [the statute].?

The Court?s complete analysis, including an interesting section on deference to the agency?s interpretation of this statute, is accessible here.

Full post as published by Within the Scope on September 01, 2008 (boomark / email).