Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-89-05070/USCOURTS-ca10-89-05070-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 950
Nature of Suit: Constitutionality of State Statutes
Cause of Action: 

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UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED 

Uoited States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Tenth Circutt 

CORDELIA THOMAS; NANCY SUE WASHINGTON, ) 

I ndividuals; UNITED KEETOOWAH BAND OF ) 

CHEROKEE INDIANS IN OKLAHOMA, an ) 

organized Band of Indians as Recognized) 

under and by the Law of the United ) 

St ates, ) 

Plaintiffs-Appellants, 

V. . 

ROBERT ANDERSON, Chairman of the 

Oklahoma Tax Commission; STATE OF 

OKLAHOMA, by and through THE OKLAHOMA 

TAX COMMISSION; DAVID THOMPSON, the 

dul y elected district attorney of 

Ot tawa County; HON. SAMUEL FULLERTON, 

pr e s iding judge of the district court 

of Ottawa Cou nty, Oklahoma, 

Defendants-Appel lees. 

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) 

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ORDER AND JUDGMENT* 

JU 2 7 199 

ROBERT L. HOECKER 

Clerk 

No. 89-507 0 

(D.C. No. 88-C-647-C) 

(N.D. Okla.) 

Be f ore TACHA, SETH, Circuit Judges, and BROWN,** District Judge. 

**Honorable Wesley E. Brown, Senior Judge, United States District 

Court for the District of Kansas, sitting by designation. 

* This order and judgment has no precedential value and shall 

not be cited, or used by any court within the Tenth Circuit, 

exc e pt for purposes of establ ishing the doctrines of the law of 

the case, res judicata, or collateral estoppel. 10th Cir. R. 

36. 3 . 

Appellate Case: 89-5070 Document: 010110037428 Date Filed: 06/27/1990 Page: 1 
This case arises from the efforts of the Oklahoma Tax 

Commission and various other Oklahoma state officials 

(co llectively, the State) to enforce Oklahoma's cigarette and 

sales tax laws against members of federally recognized Indian 

tribes engaged in the sale of cigarettes on land recognized as 

" Ind i an Country" under 18 U.S.C. § 1151 (1988). Pursuant to these 

enforceme nt effo r ts, the State seized cigarettes from a smoke shop 

owned by appell a nt Washington, a member of the Quapaw Indian 

Tribe . Ms. Washington operated the smoke shop on her allotment in 

the town of Quapaw, Oklahoma, on land constituting "Indian 

Country." After the seizure, the State assessed Ms. Washington 

f or cigarette taxes. Her protest of this assessment is currently 

p e nding before the administrative law judge of the Oklahoma Tax 

Commission. The seized cigarettes were forfeited and sold for the 

benefit of the state. 

Appe llant Thomas, an empl oyee at the shop and a member of the 

Delaware Tribe, was arrested at the time of the seizure for 

selling unstamped cigarettes. Ms. Thomas pleaded nolo contendere 

to t he misdemeanor charges filed against her and received a 

suspe nded sentence. 

Appellant United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians in 

Oklahoma (the Tribe) is a federally recognized Band of Indians 

or gan i zed and incorporated pursuant to the Oklahoma Indian Welfare 

Act of June 26, 1936. Neither of the individual appellants are 

members of the Tribe, nor were the actual enforcement activities 

which are the subject of this appeal carried out on property 

controlled by the Tribe. 

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I n their complaint, the plaintiffs requested three different 

types of re lief : Ms. Washington requested damages in the amount 

of $11 ,000.00, representing the value of the seized cigarettes; 

Ms . Thomas asked for an order of mandamus to be issued to the 

Ho no rable Samuel C. Fullerton, presiding judge of the District 

Court of Ottawa County, Oklahoma, directing him to order the 

expunction of the record of the criminal charges against her; and 

the Tribe requested a declaration that cigarette sales to Indians 

who ar e members of any federally recognized tribe in retail stores 

owned and operated by federally recognized Indians on land which 

c o nstitutes Indian Country are exempt from Oklahoma's cigarette 

and sales taxes, and a declaration that, to whatever extent such 

taxe s and criminal sanctions are valid, the State will be without 

jurisd i ction to enforce state laws with respect to the possession 

or s a l e of cigarettes in retail stores owned and operated by 

feder a l ly recognized Indians on land which constitutes Indian 

Count ry. 

After 

district 

reviewing the 

court dismissed 

recommendation 

the action. 

of the magistrate, the 

With regard to the 

indiv idual appellants, the court determined that it lacked subject 

matter jurisdiction because the individual actions were barred by 

the Ta x Injunction Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1341 (1988). The court held 

that the action of the Tribe, although not barred by section 1341, 

wa s not justiciable because the Tribe lacked standing. We affirm. 

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Appellate Case: 89-5070 Document: 010110037428 Date Filed: 06/27/1990 Page: 3 
The Individual Appellants 

The Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1341, states: 

The district courts shall not enjoin, suspend or 

restrain the assessment, levy or collection of any tax 

under State law where a plain, speedy and efficient 

remedy may be had in the courts of such State. 

The district court held that this statute barred the individual 

appellants from bringing their action in federal district court. 

Statutory interpretation decisions are reviewed by this court de 

novo . United States v. Brian N., 900 F.2d 218, 220 (10th Cir. 

1990 ). 

In dismissing the individual appellants' claims, the district 

court relied on this court's holding in Brooks v. Nance, 801 F.2d 

1237 (10th Cir. 1986). In Brooks, the individual Indian 

plaintiffs had brought an action seeking damages, injunctive 

relief and declaratory relief, arguing that their civil rights had 

been violated by the enforcement of Oklahoma's cigarette tax laws. 

I d. at 1239. In affirming the trial court's decision that 

section 1341 deprived it of subject matter jurisdiction, this 

court held that section 1341 not only bars suits for declaratory 

relief but suits for damages as well. Id. We noted that 

"[s]ection 1341 is a broad prohibition against the use of equity 

powers of federal courts involving state tax matters." Id. 

Neither a complaint based on an alleged violation of civil rights 

nor one alleging some other constitutional violation will provide 

a vehicle by which a litigant can escape the prohibition of 

section 1341. Id. 

Appellants Washington and Thomas argue that they are seeking 

the restitution o f the value of the seized cigarettes and the 

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Appellate Case: 89-5070 Document: 010110037428 Date Filed: 06/27/1990 Page: 4 
expunction of a criminal record, and that these forms of relief 

are sufficiently different from the relief contemplated by 

section 1341 to allow the federal court to assume jurisdiction. 

Ms. Washington urges that the relief she seeks is more in the 

natur e of a refund than an action for damages and thus should not 

be controlled by Brooks. We disagree. There is no conceptual 

distinction between a refund of taxes and an action for damages in 

an amount equal to the value of the taxes paid. Even if there 

were such a difference, moreover, we find that Supreme Court 

precedent interpreting section 1341 clearly bars actions for 

refunds as well as actions for damages. In California v. Grace 

Brethren Church, 457 U.S. 393 (1982), the Court considered whether 

it was unconstitutional for certain state and federal statutes to 

require that religious schools unaffiliated with churches pay 

unemp loyment insurance taxes. Id. at 396. In refusing to reach 

the merits, the Court held that the district court had lacked 

subjec t matter jurisdiction because of section 1341. Id. at 417. 

The Court read the provisions of section 1341 broadly and observed 

that the statute's legislative history demonstrated congressional 

concern "not so much about the form of relief available in the 

federal courts, as about divesting the federal courts of 

jurisdictio n to interfere with state tax administration." Id. at 

409 n .22. The Court noted that Rosewell v. LaSalle National Bank, 

450 U.S. 503 (1981), had upheld an Illinois taxing scheme as 

providing a "plain, speedy and efficient remedy," id. at 512, 

within the meaning of section 1341, relying on legislative history 

which demonstrated congressional awareness that refunds were the 

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Appellate Case: 89-5070 Document: 010110037428 Date Filed: 06/27/1990 Page: 5 
exclusive remedy for distressed taxpayers in most states. Grace 

Brethren Church, 457 U.S. at 412. In Grace Brethren Church, it 

was undisputed that the taxpayer could seek a refund through state 

administrative and judicial procedures. Id. at 413. In refusing 

to exempt refund actions from section 1341, the Court concluded 

that Congress had not intended "federal injunctions and 

declaratory judgments to disrupt state tax administration when 

state refund procedures are available." Id. at 417. We agree 

with the Ninth Circuit that 

[t]he "broad jurisdictional impediment" of § 1341 must 

be applied to tax refund suits if the concerns of 

Congress are to be meaningfully effectuated. Were it 

otherwise, the artful pleader in much state tax 

litigation could evade§ 1341 by praying only for a tax 

refund. . . . The practical effect on state fiscal 

operations of a federal court's refund order differs 

little from the effect of the declaratory or injunctive 

relief a federal court is clearly forbidden by§ 1341 to 

provide. 

Mar v in F. Poer & Co. v. Counties of Alameda, 725 F.2d 1234, 1236 

(9th Cir. 1984)(quoting Dillon v. Montana, 634 F.2d 463, 466 (9th 

Cir. 1980). We therefore conclude that whether Ms. Washington 

styles her request as one for "damages" (as she did in her 

complaint) or one for a "refund," the result under section 1341 is 

the same, and her claim is barred from federal courts. 

We view Ms. Thomas' request for an order of mandamus 

requiring expunction of her criminal record in the same light as 

Ms. Washington's request for a "refund." Both requests are for 

actions which result in federal interference with state tax 

administration, the very outcome condemned by the Supreme Court in 

Grace Brethren Church. An expunction of Ms. Thomas' criminal 

record would be tantamount to a refund for Ms. Thomas: her 

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Appellate Case: 89-5070 Document: 010110037428 Date Filed: 06/27/1990 Page: 6 
previously imposed state penalty would be recalled and she would 

be returned to her status quo before the arrest. Although the 

re l ief she requests would not be monetary in nature, it would be 

fun c tionally indistinguishable from the declaratory or injunctive 

r e lief barred by section 1341 because relief is available through 

st a t e administrative and judicial procedures. We note that Ms. 

Thomas' proper course here would have been to pursue the matter in 

a state court appeal, a remedy Ms. Thomas did not seek. Mandamus 

is i nappropriate as a substitute for appeal. See John E . Burns 

Drilling Co. v . Central Bank, 739 F.2d 1489, 1493 {10th Cir. 

1984). 

The individual appellants also argue that Brooks should be 

reconsidered because it overlooks Supreme Court precedent as well 

as precedent from other circuits. The appellants point to a 

foo tnote in Moe v. Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes of the 

Flathead Reservation, 425 U.S. 463 (1976), which, they argue, 

suppo rts their contention that individual Indians suing for a tax 

refund s hould no t be barred by section 1341. 

Moe involved a suit by a confederation of tribes and certain 

o f its members challenging the legality of Montana's cigarette and 

pe r sonal property taxes as applied to sales by them on the 

r es e rvation. Id. at 467-68. The Supreme Court held that the 

confederation of tribes was a "federal instrumentality" and thus 

was not affected by the proscriptions of section 1341, id. at 

470-72, and, further, that the taxes were contrary to federal 

s t atute as applied to the confederation of tribes and its members. 

Id. at 480-81. It was only after first determining the illegality 

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Appellate Case: 89-5070 Document: 010110037428 Date Filed: 06/27/1990 Page: 7 
of the tax as applied to the confederation of tribes, however, 

that the Court then concluded that individual tribal members could 

sue fo r refunds unburdened by section 1341. Id. at 475 n.14. 

Specifically, after noting jurisdiction over the complaint brought 

by the confederation of tribes under 28 U.S.C. § 1362, the Court 

stated that "[a]ny further proceedings with respect to refund 

claims by or on behalf of individual Indians . . . would not 

appear to implicate § 1341." Id. We interpret the Court's 

c omment regarding the availability of a refund to individual 

tri bal members to apply only after the tribe itself has prevailed 

in overturning the tax. The Court's use of the term "further 

proceedi ngs," implying a proceeding after a prior action had found 

the tax to be illegal, supports our analysis. Indeed, it would be 

rather anomalous for a federal court to declare a state tax 

inval id and then, because of concerns of 

feder al interference, refuse to hear 

refunds. 

comity or unwarranted 

individual claims for 

The instant case, however, is in a different posture than Moe 

since there has been no predicate finding that Oklahoma's 

cigarette and sales taxes are illegal as applied to the Tribe. 

Eve n if such finding had been made, the individual appellants here 

are not members of the co-plaintiff Tribe, and are therefore not 

in a position to take advantage of any such ruling. The exercise 

of jurisdiction by a federal court over individual refund claims 

befor e such a finding of general invalidity would be clearly 

cont rary to congressional intent as identified by the Supreme 

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Appellate Case: 89-5070 Document: 010110037428 Date Filed: 06/27/1990 Page: 8 
Court in Grace Brethren Church. We thus decline appellants' 

invitation to reconsider our holding in Brooks. 

Nor do we find that the individual appellants have any 

federally protected right, the abridgement of which would grant 

them entry into a federal court. "Absent express federal law to 

the contrary, Indians going beyond reservation boundaries have 

generally been held subject to nondiscriminatory state law 

otherwise applicable to all citizens of the State." Mescalero 

Apache Tribe v. Jones, 411 U.S. 145, 148-49 (1973). 

Ms. Thomas argues that her action against specific Oklahoma 

state officials is not barred by section 1341. She bases this 

argument on Indian Country, U.S.A., Inc. v. Oklahoma ex rel. 

Oklahoma Tax Commission, 829 F.2d 967 (10th Cir. 1987), cert. 

denied, 487 U.S. 1218 (1988), in which we held that section 1341 

did not apply to an action by a nontribal entity against a 

district attorney to enjoin enforcement of substantive state bingo 

regulations controlling the management of tribal-sponsored bingo. 

Id. at 987-88. These regulations, however, were unrelated to the 

enforcement of the state tax laws. See id. at 985-86. Here, the 

appellants ask for mandamus and other relief directly related to 

the enforcement of Oklahoma's statutory taxing scheme. As such, 

the relief is more akin to the injunction of state tax laws barred 

in Indian Country by section 1341 than to the mere mechanical 

bingo regulations not affected by the bar. We hold, therefore, 

that the district court did not err in dismissing the claims of 

the individual appellants for want of subject matter jurisdiction. 

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Appellate Case: 89-5070 Document: 010110037428 Date Filed: 06/27/1990 Page: 9 
The Tri bal Appellant 

As mentioned above, the individual Indian appellants in this 

case are not members of the appellant Tribe, nor were the tax 

c ollecting activities of the State carried out on Tribal land . 

While the magistrate's report and the State's briefs stress these 

facts , the district court did not rely on them in determining that 

the Tribe lacked standing. Instead, the court found that there 

had been no allegation by the Tribe that the State had taxed it or 

pr o hibited it from collecting its own Tribal taxes, and that the 

a lleged chilling effect on the Tribe's ability to collect its 

taxes was "of no concern to the State which is also obligated to 

collect taxes." Order at 4. 

" For purposes of ruling on a motion to dismiss for want of 

s tanding, both the trial and reviewing courts must accept as true 

a ll material allegations of the complaint, and must construe the 

complaint in favor of the complaining party." Warth v. Seldin, 

422 U.S. 490, 501 (1975). Our review of the complaint under this 

standard persuades us that the Tribe has failed to demonstrate 

that it has the requisite standing. 

11 Standing to sue, 1 ike mootness and ripeness, • • . has its 

constitutional origins in the "case or controversy" limitation of 

Article III which insures that courts exercise their power only in 

cases where true adversary context allows informed judicial 

resolution.'" Citizens Concerned for Separation of Church & State 

v. City & Coun t y of Denver, 628 F.2d 1289, 1294 (10th Cir. 1980) 

(q uoting Wiley v. National Collegiate Athletic Ass'n, 612 F.2d 

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Appellate Case: 89-5070 Document: 010110037428 Date Filed: 06/27/1990 Page: 10 
473, 475 (10th Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 943 (1980)), 

cert. denied, 452 U.S. 963 (1981). 

The law of standing is a "complicated specialty of federal 

jurisdiction, the solution of whose problems is in any event more 

or less determined by the specific circumstances of individual 

situations." United States v. Federal Power Comm'n, 345 U.S. 153, 

156 (1953). Some general principles regarding standing, however, 

have been summarized by the Supreme Court. "[A]t an irreducible 

minimum, Art. III requires the party who invokes the court's 

authority to 'show that he personally has suffered some actual or 

threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of 

the defendant,' and that the injury 'fairly can be traced to the 

challenged action' and 'is likely to be redressed by a favorable 

decision.'" Valley Forge Christian College v. Americans United 

for Separation of Church & State, Inc., 

(1982)(citations omitted); see also O'Connor 

Denver , 894 F.2d 1210, 1214 (10th Cir. 1990). 

454 U.S. 464, 472 

v. City & County of 

In applying the first prong of this test, we are unable to 

conclude that the Tribe has "personally suffered some actual or 

threatened injury as a result of the putatively illegal conduct of 

the defendant." There has been no allegation here that the State 

has prevented the Tribe from collecting Tribal taxes or that the 

State has attempted to enforce its tax laws against the Tribe. 

"[A] party must clearly demonstrate by facts alleged that 'he 

himself is adversely affected' or those he represents have been 

'injured in fact.'" Citizens Concerned for Separation of Church & 

State, 628 F.2d at 1296. 

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Nor can the alleged injury to the Tribe's ability to license 

stores that will be competitive in the market or the alleged 

interference with Tribal sovereignty be "fairly traced" to the 

seizure of property from a nontribal member or the arrest of a 

nontribal member, both of which actions took place on nontribal 

land. 

Because there has been no action directed by the State 

against the Tribe, this case presents the kind of abstract legal 

question inappropriate for judicial resolution. "Determination of 

the scope and constitutionality of legislation in advance of its 

immed iate adverse effect in the context of a concrete case 

involves too remote and abstract an inquiry for the proper 

exercise of the judicial function." International Longshoremen's 

Union, Local 37 v. Boyd, 347 U.S. 222, 224 (1954). The tribe has 

failed to show any actual injury to any of its members. "[A] n 

organization's abstract concern with a subject that could be 

affected by an adjudication does not substitute for the concrete 

injury required by Art. III." Simon v. Eastern Ky. Welfare Rights 

~ , 426 U.S. 26, 40 (1976). We therefore find that the district 

court was correct in concluding that the Tribe lacked standing to 

bring this action. 

The judgment of the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Oklahoma is AFFIRMED. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

PER CURIAM 

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