Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-86-01271/USCOURTS-ca10-86-01271-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 441
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Voting
Cause of Action: 

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P''!LEl) 

lfoited St~fi t'~t.u t..}t Apr,t~b 

Tenth Cirrni r 

PUBLISH DEC 2 .2 1989 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS .ROBERT L. f.-IOECKER 

Cle!k 

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT 

R. H. NERO; CARRIE BROWN; ) 

MAMIE ROSS NIVENS; CAROLINE GREEN; ) 

WILLIAM NAVE; JOHN BROWN; ) 

CAROLYN VANN SAMS; FLORENCE ROSS; ) 

EDGAR CURTIS VANN; ROBERTA ) 

DRAYTON; CARL BALL; AUDREY B. ) 

GILLIARD; SUSIE TRENT; IDELLA ) 

BALL; ARTHELL EDITH BALL, an ) 

incompetent, by and through her ) 

legal guardian, FLORENCE ROSS; ) 

LORRAINE BALL, an incompetent, ) 

by and ihrough her legal ) 

guardian, FLORENCE ROSS; and other ) 

persons similarly situated, ) 

Plaintiffs-Ap~ell~nt~, 

v. 

THE CHEROKEE NATION OF OKLAHOMA; 

ROSSO. SWIMMER; DORA WAITE; GARY 

CHAPMAN; DOROTHY WORSHAM; MAUDE 

DAVIS; ELIZABETH SULLIVAN; MARIE 

WADLEY; RAY MCSPADDEN, 

individually and in their 

official capacity; UNITED STATES 

OF.AMERICA; OFFICE OF THE 

PRESIDENT; UNITED STATES 

DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR; 

OFFICE OF THE. SECRETARY; THE 

BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS; 

DENNIS SPRINGWATER; FRANK FERRELL; 

JOE PAR~ER, individually and in 

their official capacity, 

Defendants~Appellees. 

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No. 86-1271 

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the Northern District of Oklahoma 

(D.C. No. 84-C-557-C) 

Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 1 
Submitted on Briefs: 

James o. Goodwin of Goodwin & Goodwin, Tulsa, Oklahoma, for the 

Plaintiffs-Appellants. 

Myles E. Flint, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Washington, 

D.C., Layn R. Phillips, United States Attorney, Peter Bernhardt, 

Assistant United States Attorney, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Robert L. 

Klarquist and William B. Lazarus, Attorneys, Department of Justice 

Land and Natural Resources Division, Washington, D.C., (Scott Keep 

and David Etherridge, Attorneys, United States Department of the 

Interior, Washington, D.C., of Counsel) for Defendants-Appellees 

officers and employees of the United States. 

James G. Wilcoxen of Wilcoxen & Cate, Muskogee, Oklahoma, for 

Defendants-Appellees, except officers and employees of the United 

States of America. 

Bef-=re MCKAY, SEYMOUR, and HIGGINBOTHAM*, Circuit Judges. 

SE~MOUR, Circuit Judge. 

* The Honorable Patrick E. Higginbotham, Circuit Judge, United 

States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting by 

designation. 

Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 2 
Plaintiffs, who are descendants of sla~es owned by'Cherokees 

and freed by the Treaty of 1866 between the United States and the 

Cherokee Nation, brought suit against the Cherokee Nation, certain 

tribal officials, the United States, and various federal 

officials. According to the complaint, the 1866 Treaty and the 

Cherokee Constitution confer on plaintiffs the rights and 

privileges of Cherokee citizenship, although they are not of 

Cherokee blood. Defendants allegedly have violated a broad array 

of constitutional and statutory provisions by denying plaintiffs 

the right to vote in tribal elections and the right to participate 

in federal Indian benefits programs.· Specifically, plaintiffs 

assert .claims under the First, Fifth, Ninth,. Thirteenth, and 

Fifteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution; the Indian 

Civil Rights Act; the Treaty of July 19, 1866; 42 u.s.c. §§ 1981, 

1985(3), 1986, and 2000(d); and the Bivens doctrine. 

The district court dismissed plaintiffs' claims against the 

Tribe, its officials, and the United States on the basis of 

sovereign immunity. The court also granted summary judgment in 

favor of the federal officials, relying on the doctrine of 

qualified immunity. Plaintiffs appeal. 1 We affirm, although in 

1 After examining the briefs and appellate record, this. panel 

has determined unanimously that oral argument would not materially 

assist the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 

34(a); 10th Cir. R. 34.1.8. The cause is therefore ordered 

submitted without oral argument. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 3 
some respect__s on grounds different from those relied on by the 

trial court. 

I. 

Suit Against the Tribe 

The district court ruled ~hat plaintiff~' suit against the 

Tribe is barred by sovereign immunity. This doctrine, "which 

recognizes the sovereignty of Indian tribes and seeks to preserve 

their autonomy, protects· tribes from suits in federal and state 

courts." Wichita & Affiliated Tribes. of Oklahoma v. Hodel, 788 

F.2d 765, 771 (D.C. Cir. 1986). The Supreme Court has stated 

unequivocally that Indian tribes possess "the common-law immunity 

from suit traditionally enjoyed by sovereign powers." Santa Clara 

Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49, 58 (1978). This immunity .can be 

waived both by tribal .consent, see Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache 

Tribe, 617 F.2d 537 (10th Cir. 1980) (en bane), aff'd on other 

grounds, 455 U.S. 130 (1982), and by Congressional action, see 

Santa Clara Pueblo, 436 U.S. at 58~ However, "[i]t is settled 

that a waiver of sovereign immunity 'cannot be. implied but must be 

unequivocally ex.pressed.'" Id. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 4 
Plaintiffs make three arguments in•an attempt to overcome the 

jurisdictional bar of sovereign immunity. 2 First, plaintiffs 

assert that their claims under Title I of the Indian Civil Rights 

Act (ICRA), 25 U.S.C. §§ 1301-1303 (1982 & Supp. IV 1986), should 

not have been dismissed beciause the ICRA, ~s interpreted by this . 

court in Dry Creek Lodge, Inc. v. Arapahoe & Shoshone Tribes, 623 

F.2d 682 (10th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1118 (1981), 

deprives the Tribe of immunity from suit under its provisions. 

Plaintiffs alternatively urge that the Tribe waived its immunity 

to suit pursuant to the ICRA by virtue of a provision in the 

Cherokee Constitutio~. Finally, plaintiffs argue that the Tribe 

is amenable to suit under the various civil rights acts because 

the Treaty of 1866 limits the Tribe's sovereign power and, 

concomitantly, limits the scope of protection from suit afforded 

by sovereign immunity. 

Santa Clara Pueblo and our decision in Wheeler v. Swimmer, 

835 F.2d 259 (10th Cir. 1987), make clear that plaintiffs' 

(eliance o~ the ICRA is misplaced. In Santa Clara Pueblo, a 

female member of the tribe and her daughter challenged a tribal 

ordinance that denied tribal membership to· the children of a 

2 See Ramey Const. Co. v. Apache Tribe of Mescalero 

Reservation, 673 F.2d 315, 318 (10th Cir. 1982) ("The issue of 

sovereign immunity is jurisdictional."); see also White v. Pueblo 

of San Juan, 728 F.2d 1307, 1309 (10th Cir. 1984); cf. 14 C. 

Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice andProcedure § 

3654 at 186-90 (1985) (absence of consent of United States is 

jurisdictional defect). 

-5-

Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 5 
female member who married outside the tribe. The plaintiffs 

relied on Title I of the ICRA which confers certain civil rights 

on members of the American Indian tribes, including the right to 

equal protection of the laws. See 25 u.s.c. § 1302(8). The Court 

acknowledged that the ICRA had modified the substantive law 

applicable to the exercise of sovereign tribal powers, but 

concluded that this modification by itself could not be 

interpreted as a waiver of the immunity from suit traditionally 

enjoyed by sovereign powers. Santa Clara Pueblo, 436 U.S. at 57-

59. Noting that a waiver of. sovereign immunity "cannot be implied 

but must be unequivocally expressed," the Court found nothing in 

Title I which "purports to subject tribes to the jurisdiction of 

the federal courts in civil actions for injunctive or declaratory 

relief." Id. at 58-59. 

In Swimmer, 835 F •. 2d 259, a case arisi.ng from the same 

factual context as the present case, disappointed candidates for 

Cherokee Nation tribal offices sought federal court review of the· 

tribal election process. They alleged, inter alia, that the tribe 

·and various tribal officials had deprived plaintiff candidates of 

their civil rights in violatio.nof the ICRA. We rejected 

plaintiffs' effort to secure federal relief for a violation of the 

ICRA, relying on Santa Clara Pueblo. "The only federal relief 

available under the [ICRAJ against a tribe or its officials is a 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 6 
writ of habeas corpus. ·Actions for any other relief must be 

brought through tribal forums. 113 Id. at 261 (citation omitted). 

Plaintiffs contend that their suit is not barred because it 

falls within an exception to tribal sovereign immunity outlined by 

this court in Dry Creek Lodge, 623 F.2d 682. A majority of the 

panel in Dry Creek Lodge concluded that such an exception exists 

· under the ICRA where the dispute does not concern internal tribal 

issues, the plaintiff is non-Indian, and tribal remedies are 

unavailable~ 4 The district court here held this exception 

-inapplicable to plaintiffs' case because plaintiffs failed to 

pursue avail~ble tribal remedies and because the dispute concerns 

the internal tribal affairs of membership and gov~rnment. We 

agree that plaintiffs do not fit within the exception outlined in 

Dry Creek Lodge, an exception this court has narrowly construed. 5 

3 The ICRA provides that federal habeas corpus relief is 

"available to any person_, in a court of the United States, to test 

the legality of his detention by order of an Indian Tribe." 25 

u.s.c. § 1303 (1982). 

4 Dry Creek Lodge involved non-Indian plaintiffs who owned land 

in fee simple within the boundaries of the Shoshone and Arapahoe 

Indians' Wind River Reservation. The superintendent of the . Reservation promised the plaintiffs that access to a lodge they· 

proposed to build would not be a problem, but after it was built 

the tribes blocked the sole road from the lodge to the highway. 

The tribes subsequently refused the plaintiffs access to the 

tribal court. 

5 In White v. Pueblo of San Juan, 728 F.2d 1307 (10th Cir. 

1984), non-Indians who owned land within the Pueblo's boundaries 

inv6ked the ICRA and Dry Creek Lodge exception in their suit 

against the Pueblo for blocking th~ sale of their land to other 

non-Indians. This court rejected the plaintiffs' reliance on _Q_£y 

Creek Lodge, noting that n[n]ecessarily the Dry Creek opinion must 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 7 
Nor are we persuaded by plaintiffs' argument that the 

Cherokee Constitution waives the Tribe's immunity from suit under 

the ICRA. A waiver, as we noted at the outset, "cannot be implied 

but must be unequivocally expressed.'" Santa Clara Pueblo, 436 

U.S. at 58. Plaintiffs urge us to construe language in the 

Cherokee Constitution providing that "the appropriate protection 

guaranteed by the ICRA shall apply to all members of the Cherokee 

Nation," Brief for Appellants at 27, as such an express waiver. 

The cited language no more constitutes an unequivocal expression 

of .waiver than does the language of the ICRA, which itself creates 

the substantive rights supposedly guaranteed to all members of the 

Cherokee Nation, language which the Supreme Court refused to 

interpret as a waiver. 

be regarded as requiring narrow interpretation in order not to 

come into donflict with the· decision of the Supreme Court in Santa 

Clara." Id. at 1312. Consistent with construing Dry Creek to 

"provide a narrow exception to the traditional sovereign immunity 

bar from suits," we held that an "aggrieved party _must have . actually sought a tribal remedy, not merely have alleged its 

futility." Id. See also Ramey Const. Co. v. Apache Tribe of 

Mescalero Reservation, 673 F.2d 315 (10th Cir. 1982), where we 

held that tribal sovereign immunity barred a suit pursuant to the 

ICRA brought by a non-Indian in federal court to settle a contract 

dispute with the Apache Tribe, even though the plaintiff alleged 

lack of access· to tribal. courts. The plaintiff relied heavily on 

Dry Creek Lodge,. but we held -it distinguishable because " [ t] hat 

case involved particularly egregious allegations of personal 

restraint and deprivation of personal rights that are not present 

in this action." -Id. at 319 n.4. We thereby suggested that the 

exception-to tribalsovereign immunity outlined in Dry Creek Lodge 

is applicable only in cases with similar facts. It is thus clear 

that tribal sovereign immunity may preclude federal court 

jurisdiction over non-Ihdian complaints brought under the ICRA 

even if tribal remedies are unavailable. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 8 
Plaintiffs primarily rely on two Ninth Circuit cases in 

arguing that the Treaty of 1866 limits the Cherokee Nation's 

sovereignty and, concomitantly, the Tribe's immunity from suit. 

See Hardin v. White Mountain Apache Tribe, 761 F.2d 1285 (9th Cir. 

1985), superseded, 779 F.2d 476 (1985); Snow v. Quinault Indian 

Nation, jog F.2d 1319 (9th Cir~ 1983), cert. denied, 467 U.S. 1214 

(1984). Although both of those cases state in dicta that tribal 

immunity does not bar "'actions which allege conduct that is 

determined to be outside the scope of a tribe's sovereign 

powers,'" Harden, 761 F.2d at 1287 (quoting Snow, 709 F.2d at 

1321), the Ninth Circuit has subsequently repudiated this theory. 

The Harden decision upon which plaintiffs rely was superseded by 

an opinion which omits the above ~taternent from the sovereign 

immunity discussion. See Harden v. White Mountain Apache Tribe, 

779 F.2d 476, 478-79 (9th.Cir. 1985). M_ore significantly, in 

Chemehuewi Indian Tribe v. California State.Bd. of Equalization, 

757 F.2d 1047, 1052 (9th Cir.), rev'd per curiam on other grounds, 

474 U.S. 9 (1985)~ the Ninth Circuit characterized the statement 

in Snow as "apparently inadvertently" misapplying _the law. The 

court went on to hold that "[t]he tribe remains immune from suit 

regardless of any allegation that it acted beyond its authority or 

outside of its powers." Id. 

We believe that Snow and the initial Hardin opinion are 

contary -to the reasoning and holding of the Supreme Court in Santa 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 9 
Clara Pueblo. See Merrion, 617 F.2d at 540 ("[Santa Clara Pueblo] 

clearly hold[s] a tribe cannot be sued absent consent.") In Santa 

Clara Pueblo, the Court adhered to the traditional doctrine of 

sovereign immunity even though the ICRA imposes substantive 

constraints on tribes. The underlying premise of the Court's 

ruling is that a tribe acting in derogation of the ICRA, and thus 

arguably beyond the scope of its sovereign powers, is nonetheless 

immune from suit absent a waiver of sovereign immunity. The Court 

implicitly refused to find a waiver arising solely from the 

alleged violation of the ICRA, requiring instead that an explicit 

waiver be found in some other source. Consistent with the Court's 

approach in Santa Clara Pueblo, we believe that the question 

before this court must be.whether the language of the i866 ·Treaty 

constitutes a waiver. 

The 1866 Treaty provides in relevant pait "that all freedmen 

who have been liberated by voluntary act of their former owners or 

by law, .•• and their descendants, shall have all the rights of 

native Cherokees." Treaty Between the United States of America 

and the Cherokee Nation of Indians, July 19, 1866, art. IX, 14 

Stat. ·799, 801. We are not persuaded that this language 

6onstitutes an ''unequivocal expression" of waiver by the Cher6kee 

Nation of its sovereign immunity. Like the provisions of the ICRA 

at issue in Santa Clara Pueblo, this provision only places 

substantive constraints on the Tribe, it does not waive the 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 10 
Tribe's immunity from a suit alleging non-compliance with these 

constraints. 

B. Suit Against Tribal Officials 

Plaintiffs assert the same claims against the tribal 

pfficials that. they raise against the Tribe. 6 Although sovereign 

immunity analysis differs with respect to tribal officials, we do 

not reach this issue because plaintiffs have failed to state any 

claims against these defendants. 

As with plaintiffs' ICRA claims against the Tribe, we need 

look no farther than the Supreme court's opinion in Santa Clara 

Pueblo and our decision in Swimmer to conclude that plaintiffs 

have failed to state a claim against the Cherokee tribal officials 

under the.ICRA. The Supreme Court in Santa Clara Pueblo, 

expressly invoking concerns-about preserving tribal autonomy and 

self-government, reasoned that the statutory scheme ~nd the 

lagislative history of Title I of the ICRA indicate Congress 

deliberately decided not to provide federal remedies other than 

habeas corpus in order to limit the Act's intrusion into tribal 

sovereignty. Santa Clara Pueblo, 436 U.S. at 59-72. For this 

reason, the Co~rt held that other causes of action against tribal 

officials couid not be implied from the ICRA.- Id. at 69. In 

6 Indeed, plaintiffs have failed to distinguish the two classes 

of Indian defendants, the Tribe and tribal officials. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 11 
Swimmer, we rejected plaintiffs' efforts to secure federal relief 

against tribal officials for an alleged violation of the ICRA. 

The holdings in Santa Clara Pueblo and Swimmer preclude 

plaintiffs' claims against the Cherokee tribal officials. 7 

Plaintiffs' civil rights acts claims fare no better. 

Plaintiffs rely on 42 u.s.c. §§ 1985(3) and 1986, as did the 

plaintiffs in Swimmer. The analysis in that case controls 

resolution of those claims here. Plaintiffs must allege 

violations of independent substantive statutory or constitutional 

provisions. to recover under sections 1985(3) and 1986 because 

those statutes only provide a remedy for the violation of 

substantive rights established elsewhere • .Swimmer, 835 F.2d at 

261-62. Plaintiffs must look to the ICRA as the source of their 

alleged entitlement to the rights and privileg~s of tribal 

membership, because federal bonstitutional protections extend to 

individual Indians only to the extent incorporated in the ICRA. 

Id. at 261; see also Trans-Canada Enter. v. Muckleshoot Indian 

Tribes, 634 F.2d 474, 476-77 (9th Cir. 1980). 

As this court observed in Swimmer, the "interest in 

preserving the inherent right of self-government in Indian tribes 

is equally strong" when suit is brought against individual 

7 We need not address plaintiffs' argument that the Cherokee 

Constitution waives the tribal officials' immunity from suits 

brought pursuant to the ICRA because there is no federal cause of 

action against them under the ICRA. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 12 
officers of the tribal organization as when hrought against the 

tribe itself. 834 F.2d at 262. Such considerations of tribal 

sovereignty, and the Supreme Court's emphasis in Santa Clara 

Pueblo on the availability of tribal forums to vindicate rights 

created by.the ICRA, persuaded us that the ICRA does not provide 

an independent basis for suit under sections 19B5(3) and 1986~ 

"[W)hen a tribal forum is available ••• the aggrieved party must 

seek relief in that forum.'" Id. at 262 (citation omitted). 8 

Plaintiffs have thus failed to state a claim under sections 

1985(3) and 1986. 

The analysis in Swimmer is inapplicable to plaintiffs' claims 

under sections 1981 9 and 2000d10 , because those sections do create 

8 Plaintiffs argue that pursuing tribal remedies would be 

futile. As the district court observed, however, alleging 

futility of tribal remedies does not eliminate the barrier of 

tribal sovereign immunity. See White v. Pueblo of San Juan, 728 

F. 2d ·1307; 1312· ( 10th Cir. 1984). . 

9 Section 1981 provides: 

"All persons within the jurisdiction of the United 

States shall have the same right in every State and 

Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be 

parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal 

benefit of all laws and proceedings for ·the security of 

persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, 

and shall be subject to like punishment, pains, · penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind, 

and to no other. 

42 u.s.c. § 1981 (1982). 

10 Section 2000d provides: 

"No person in the United States shall, on the 

ground of race, color, or national origin, be excluded 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 13 
independent substantive rights. We must therefore determine 

whether these statutes apply to the tribal officials under the 

circumstances in the present case. 

The Supreme Court has stated in dictum that "a general 

statute in terms applying to all persons includes Indians and 

their property interests." Federal Power Comm'n v. Tuscarora 

Indian Nation, 362 U.S. 99, 116 (1960); but see EEOC v. Cherokee 

Nation, 871 F.2d 937, 938 n.3 (10th Cir. 1989) (noting question as 

to ''continuing vitality of the Tuscarora dictum in light of the 

Supreme Court's decision in Merrion v. Jicarilla Apache Tribe, 455 

U.S. 130 (1982)"). Lower courts have recognized three exceptions 

to the Tuscarora rule. 

"A federal statute of general applicability that is 

silent on the issue of applicability to Indian tribes 

will not apply to them if: (1) the law touches 

'exclusive rights of self-governance in purely 

intramuial-matters'; (2) the application of the law to 

the tribe would 'abrogate rights guaranteed by Indian 

treaties'; or (3) there is proof 'by legislative history 

or some other means that Congress intended [the law) not 

to apply to Indians on their reservations .•.. ' In 

any of these three situations, Congress must expressly 

apply a statute to Indians before we will hold that it 

reaches them." 

Donovan v. Coeur d'Alene Tribal Farm, 751 F.2d 1113, 1116 (9th 

Cir. 1985) (quoting U.S. v. Farris, 624 F.2d 890, 893-94 (9th Cir. 

1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1111 (1981)); see also Smart v. 

from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be 

subjected to discrimination under any program or 

activity receiving Federal financial assistance." 

42 u.s.c. § 2000d (1982). 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 14 
State Farm Ins. Co., 868 F.2d 929, 932 (7th Cir. 1989). Neither 

section 1981 nor section 2000d is expressly applicable to Indian 

tribes. Accordingly, these statutes may not be invoked against 

the tribal officials here if the facts of this case fall within 

one of the above exceptions. 

We conclude that allowing plaintiffs to assert claims under 

sections 1981 and 2000d would affect the Tribe's right to 

self-governance in a purely internal matter. Under the first 

exception set forth above, therefore, the statutes do not apply. 

Plaintiffs in essence assert that defendants have discriminated on 

the basis of race by refusing to accord them tribal membership and 

its privileges and benefits. Plaintiffs argue that they state a 

claim for relief under both section 1981 and section 2000d because 

these provisions prohibit race discrimination. However, no right 

is more integral to a tribe's self-goverance than its ability to 

establish its membership. "A tribe's right to define its own 

membership for tribal· purposes has long been recognized as central· 

to its existence as an independent political community." Santa 

ciara Pueblo, 436 U.S. at 72 n.32; see also Montana v. United 

States, 450 U.S. 544, 564 (1981); United States v. Wheeler, 435 

U.S. 313, 322 n. 18 (1978). Applying the statutory prohibitions 

against race discrimination to a tribe's designation of tribal 

members would· in effect eviscerate the tribe's sovereign power to 

define itself, and thus would constitute an unacceptable 

interference ''with a tribe's ability to maintain itself as a 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 15 
culturally and politically distinct entity.'' Santa Clara Pueblo, 

436 U.S. at 72. We thus hold that plaintiffs have failed to state 

a claim under sections 1981 and 2000d. 

II. 

A. Suit Against the United Stat~s and its Agencies 

As the Supreme Court observed in United States v. Mitchell, 

463 U.S. 206, 212 (1983), "[i]t is axiomatic that the United 

States may not be sued without its consent and that the existence 

of consent is a prerequisite for jurisdiction." See also 14 C. 

Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice .and Procedure~-

3654 at 186-90 (1985). Moreover, Congress may impose conditions 

on the government's waiver of immunity. See,~, Stubbs v.· · 

United States, 620 F.2d 775, 779 (10th Ci.r. 1980). Plaintiffs 

raise three arguments on appeal in an attempt to avoid the 

jurisdictional barrier of sovereign immunity to their requests for 

monetary and injunctive relief against the United States. 

First, plaintiffs assert that they are entitled to proceed 

under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), 28 U.S.C. §§ 2671-2680 

(1982), to recover compensatory damages. Congress waived the 

United States' immunity from suit in a certain class of cases when 

it enacted the FTCA, but Congress imposed certain conditions on 

this waiver. Section 2675 of the FTCA requires that 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 16 
administrative remedies be exhausted before suit is filed in 

district court. Plaintiffs contend that they did not pursue their 

administrative remedies because they believed doing so would be 

futile. However~ bringing an administrative claim is a 

jurisdictional prerequisite to suit, imposed by Congress, .which 

the courts have- no power to waive. See Lurch v. United States, 

719 F.2d 833, 835 n.3 (10th Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 466 U.S. 927 

(1984). The district court properly held that plaintiffs' failure 

to exhaust created a jurisdictional bar under the FTCA. See 

Colorado Flying Academy v. United States, 724 F.2d 871, 874 n.9 

(10th Cir. 1984), cert. denied, 476 U.S. 1182 (1986)~ 

Plaintiffs riext argue that they iay pursue their claim 

against the United States on the basis of a trust relationship 

between the United States and the Cherokee freedmen arising from 

their status as Cherokees. Relying on Mitchell, 463 b.s. 206, 

plaintiffs contend that this trust relationship exempts their 

claims for monetary relief from the sovereign immunity barrier. 

In Mitchell, Quinault Indians sought damages from the United 

States under _the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491 (1982), and its 

counterpart for claims brought by Indian tribes, the Indian Tucker 

Act, 28 u.s.c. § 1505 (1982). 11 The plaintiffs claimed that the 

United States had breached its trust duty to them by mismanaging 

11 Section 1505 provides tribal plaintiffs access to the Court 

of Claims equivalent to that provided individual plaintiffs by 

section 1491. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 17 
timberlands on the Quinault Reservation. The Supreme Court 

concluded that the plaintiffs were entitled to recover damages 

from the United States. To reach this result, the Court first had 

to det~imine whether the United States had consented to suit, 

thereby waiving its sovereign immunity. A review of the 

legislative history of the two Tucker Acts, and cases interpreting 

them, convinced the Court that the Acts constituted a waiver of 

sovereign immunity, so that "[i]f a claim falls within the terms 

of the Tucker Act, the United States has presumptively consented 

to suit." 463 U.S. at 216. 12 

Even assuming that plaintiffs' claims here fall within the 

Tucker Act, that Act would provide a waiver of sovereign immunity 

in the Claims Court, but not in district court. 

12 Because the Tucker Act only provides a remedy, "[a] 

substantive right must be found in some other source of law, such 

as "the Constitution, or any Act of Congress, or any regulation of 

an executive department." United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 

206, 216 (1983) (citation omitted). In Mitchell, the Court 

considered the statutes and regulations relSvant to the 

government's management of Indian forests and timber resources to 

determine whether they could be interpreted to provide a cause of 

action for the breach of the duties they impose. The Court 

concluded that these provisions directly support the existence of 

a fiduciary relationship such that the "Government should be 

liable for the breach of its fiduciary duties." 436 U.S. at 226. 

In the instant case, plaintiffs assert the government's breach of 

its general trust relation to the Indians as giving rise to a 

claim for damages. In view of our conclusion infra that the 

Claims Court has exclusive jurisdiction over this claim, we do not 

address this issue further with respect to the federal government. 

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Appellate Case: 86-1271 Document: 010110192472 Date Filed: 12/22/1989 Page: 18 
~The Tucker Act (codified at 28 u.s.c. §§ 1346, 1491) 

grants concurrent jurisdiction to the district court and 

the Claims Court (formerly the Court of Claims) over 

money claims against the United States not exceeding $10,000. For claims against the United States involving 

amounts greater than.$10,000 founded upon the 

Constitution, Acts of Congress, executive regulations, 

or contracts, the Act vests exclusive jurisdiction with 

the Claims Court." 

·State of New Mexico v. Regan, 745 F.2d 1318,· 1322 (10th Cir. 

1984); see also Rogers v. Ink, 766 F.2d 430, 433 (10th Cir. 1985). 

In this case, plaintiffs seek both monetary damages in the 

amount of $250,000,000, and injunctive and declaratory relief. 

"[W]hen the 'prime objective' or 'essential purpose' of the 

complaining party is to obtain moriey from the federal government 

(in an amount in excess of $10,000), the Claims Court's exclusive 

jurisdiction is triggered." Regan, 745 F.2d at 1322; see also 

Rogers, 766 F.2d at 434. That recovering money damages is the 

primary objective of plaintiffs' suit against the federal 

government is demonstrated both by plaintiffs' reliance upon 

Mitchell and by their argument to this court. Plainiiffs assert 

on appeal: 

"It is even more compelling to allow monetary 

relief in the instant case than it was in the case of 

United States v. Mitchell, supra. Here, appella~ts are 

not concerned with mismanagement of timber and natural 

resources (i.e., property rights), but rather with their 

right to vote (i.e., liberty interests). To limit the 

freedmen to merely prospective ·equitable remedies would 

be totally inadequate. 

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"First, the freedmen are in no p6sition to monitor 

the federal government's actions in administering the 

government-to-government relations between it and the 

-Indian tribe~ and in carrying out its trust 

responsibility. 

"Second, .a prospective equit~ble remedy does little 

to compensate the freedmen for the embarrassment, 

humiliation, anxiety and shame which accompanied their 

disenfranchisement from the Cherokee Nation and little 

to deter the federal government from breaching their 

trust responsibility and allowing such unlawful tribal 

actions in the future. For these reasons, appellants 

contend that the reasoning of United States v. Mitchell, 

supra., should be applied to the case at bar and that· 

this court permit plaintiffs to bring suit against the 

United States for monetary relief." 

Brief of Appellants at 35-36. We therefore conclude that under 

the Tucker Act the dis~rict court was without subject matter 

jurisdiction over plaintiffs' claims against t~e federal 

government based on Mitchell. 

B. Suit Against Federal Officials 

Plaintiffs assert claims against the federal officials 

individually for breach of the government's trust relationship 

with its Indian citizens. Plaintiffs also allege claims under 

Bivens v. Six Unknown Named.Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971),_ for the 

denial of their alleged constitutional right to vote in the 1983 

Cherokee tribal elections. The basis of both the breach-of-trust 

claims and the Bivens claims is the failure of these defendants to 

intervene in the alleged discriminatory tribal election process. 

The trial court granted_defendants' motion for summary judgment on 

the basis of qualified immunity. We affirm, concluding instead 

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that plaintiffs have failed to state a claim against these 

defendants. 

In Wheeler v. United States Dept. of the Interior, 811 F.2d 

549 (10th Cir. 1987), we explicitly rejected plaintiffs' argument 

that the federal government's general trust responsibilities 

impose a duty on these federal officials to involve themselves in 

the tribal election. As in this case, the plaintiffs in Wheeler, 

argued that the government 

"has a duty to protect the Cherokee Indians' right to 

self-government and that to do so, it must step in under 

authority of its general trust responsibilities, as it 

did in United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206, 103 

s.ct. 2961, 77 L.Ed.2d 580 (1983), and Milam v. United · States Department of Interior, 10 Indian L. Rep. (Am. 

Indian Law. Training Program) 3013, No. 82-3099 (D.D.C. 

Dec. 23, 1982)." 

Id. at 552. We distinguished Mitchell as a case involving federal 

statutes and regulations requiring government action with respect 

to a specific trust corpus. Id. at 5·53. In contrast, . in Wheeler 

and the instant case there is "no corpus, and no statute or 

regulation requires Department involvement in Cherokee election 

disputes; rather, as noted previously, federal law precludes 

Department action." Id. We distinguished Milam as involving a 

tribe which, contrary to the Cherokee Nation, had no tribal forum 

for interpreting tribal law, thus requiring the Department to 

interpret the tribal constitution "in order to determine which 

government it should recognize in its interactions.'' Id. 

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Our conclusion in Wheeler tha-t the plaintiffs had no cause of 

action based on the government's non-intervention in the tribal 

election process is equally applicable to plaintiffs' claims 

against the federal official-s here. 

Id.13 

"Indian tribes have a right to self-government, and 

the Federal Government encourages tribes to exercise 

that right. Consequently, while the Department may be 

required by statute or tribal law to act in intratribal 

matters, it should act so as to avoid any unnecessary 

interference'with a tribe's right to self-government. 

Plaintiffs have not cited, and we have not found, any 

federal statute or any provision of Cherokee law that 

requires the Department to intervene ln a Cherokee 

election dispute. Rather, the Cherokee Nation provides 

a tribal forum for resolving such disputes. 

C9nsequently, the Department has no authority to take 

action contrary to the tribal resolution of such 

disputes. In the present.case, the Department does not 

have authority to invalidate the Cherokee election, and 

the courts have no authority to order the Department to 

grant sue~ relief." 

Plaintiffs' remaining claims, to the extent they are pursued 

on appeal, are implicitly resolved adversely to plaintiffs by the 

holdings we articulate in this opinion. 

AFFIRMED. 

13 We believe that the above holding is dispositive of 

plaintiffs' alleged constitutional claims under Bivens. In 

event, as discussed above at 13-14, federal constitutional 

protections extend to individual Indians only to the extent 

incorporated by the ICRA, which do~s not provide a cause of 

for its violation under the circumstances here. 

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any 

action 

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