IN THE

ARIZONA COURT OF APPEALS

DIVISION ONE

CLAUDIA MEDINA, duly appointed Personal Representative of the 

Estates of Carlos Mario Pena Jaramillo; Soraida Delgado Sierra;

Juliana Pena Delgado; and Manuela Pena Delgado, 

Plaintiff/Appellant,

v.

The Estate of JAVAS JAYSEAN CODY, The Estate of AARON CHEE;

MARTINA GRANDSON, an unmarried woman; SENTRY INSURANCE 

COMPANY f/k/a Sentry Insurance a Mutual Company, 

Defendants/Appellees.

No. 1 CA-CV 22-0709 

Appeal from the Superior Court in Coconino County

No. S0300CV202000641

No. S0300CV202100003

The Honorable Ted Stuart Reed, Judge

AFFIRMED

COUNSEL

Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, Phoenix

By Robert B. Carey, Michella A. Kras

Counsel for Plaintiff/Appellant

Zwillinger Wulkan, PLC, Phoenix

By Colin Bradley

Counsel for Defendant/Appellee Jefferson Cody

FILED 10-5-2023
2

Appel Law Office, P.L.L.C., Fountain Hills

By Marc Appel

Counsel for Defendant/Appellee Martina Grandson

Christian Dichter & Sluga, P.C., Phoenix

By Gena L. Sluga

Counsel for Defendants/Appellees Sentry Insurance Company

Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP, Phoenix

By Susan M. Freeman

Counsel for Defendants/Appellees Sentry Insurance Company

Navajo Nation Department of Justice, Window Rock

By Sage G. Metoxen

Counsel for Amicus Curiae Navajo Nation

OPINION

Presiding Judge D. Steven Williams delivered the Court’s opinion, in which 

Judge Samuel A. Thumma and Judge Paul J. McMurdie joined.

W I L L I A M S, Judge:

¶1 The issue before us is whether a plaintiff who is not an 

enrolled tribal member may bring a civil tort case in state court against an 

enrolled tribal member for conduct occurring within tribal reservation 

boundaries but on a stretch of land for which the State has been granted a

highway right-of-way easement. We hold that a non-tribal plaintiff 

bringing such a case cannot hale a nonconsenting enrolled tribal member 

defendant into state court for actions arising out of conduct on the 

defendant’s reservation, even when that conduct occurs on a state highway.

Accordingly, we affirm.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

¶2 Early one evening in January 2019, Javas Jaysean Cody drove 

his mother’s (Martina “Grandson”) vehicle across the center line of an 

undivided highway into oncoming traffic, colliding with the Pena Delgado

family’s car. Tragically, the head-on collision killed the occupants of both 

vehicles on impact—the four members of the Pena Delgado family (Carlos, 

Soraida, Juliana, and Manuela), and Cody and his passenger, Aaron Chee.
MEDINA v. CHEE, et al.

Opinion of the Court

3

The collision occurred along a section of U.S. Highway 89 located on the 

Navajo Nation. Both Cody and Chee were enrolled members of the Navajo 

Tribe, as was Grandson; the Pena Delgado family was not.

¶3 As a surviving Pena Delgado family member, Claudia 

Medina was appointed the personal representative of the Pena Delgado 

estates. Medina filed two wrongful death cases (later consolidated), one 

(predicated on negligence) against Cody’s estate and the other (predicated 

on negligence and negligent entrustment) against Grandson and Chee’s 

estate (collectively “the Defendants”).

¶4 About eighteen months into the litigation, Sentry Insurance 

Company (“Sentry”), which insured Grandson and Chee at the time of the 

collision (and covered Cody as an additional insured), successfully moved 

to intervene. Sentry then moved to dismiss the consolidated cases, arguing, 

among other things, that the court lacked subject matter jurisdiction 

because the tort action arose “out of on-reservation conduct by Navajo 

tribal members.”

¶5 Without addressing Sentry’s other asserted bases for 

dismissal, the superior court dismissed Medina’s claims for lack of subject 

matter jurisdiction based on the undisputed facts: (1) the Defendants are

“Navajo tribal members residing on the Navajo Reservation,” (2) the Pena 

Delgado family were non-tribal members, and (3) the location of the 

accident was “on a state highway within the Navajo Reservation.” Upon 

entry of final judgment, Medina timely appealed. We have jurisdiction over 

this appeal under Article 6, Section 9, of the Arizona Constitution, and 

A.R.S. §§ 12-120.21(A)(1) and -2101(A)(1).

DISCUSSION

¶6 Medina challenges the superior court’s dismissal of her tort 

action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Contrary to the superior court’s 

implicit finding, Medina contends that tribal courts do not have exclusive 

jurisdiction over civil tort actions arising out of conduct that occurs on 

state-maintained rights-of-way running through tribal land.

¶7 “Subject matter jurisdiction is the power of a court to hear and 

determine a controversy.” Grosvenor Holdings, L.C. v. Figueroa, 222 Ariz. 588, 

594, ¶ 13 (App. 2009) (internal quotations omitted). We review de novo

whether a superior court has subject matter jurisdiction over a civil action. 

Buehler v. Retzer ex rel. Indus. Comm’n, 227 Ariz. 520, 521, ¶ 4 (App. 2011). 
MEDINA v. CHEE, et al.

Opinion of the Court

4

¶8 “[Q]uestions of jurisdiction over Indians and Indian country 

remain a complex patchwork of federal, state, and tribal law, which is better 

explained by history than by logic.” Smith v. Salish Kootenai Coll., 434 F.3d 

1127, 1130 (9th Cir. 2006) (internal quotations omitted). To resolve such 

questions, courts must “inspect [the] relevant statutes, treaties, and other 

materials,” including existing caselaw. Strate v. A-1 Contractors, 520 U.S. 438,

449 (1997). 

¶9 In 1868, after decades of conflict, the Navajo Tribe entered a 

treaty with the United States government. Arizona v. Navajo Nation, 143 

S. Ct. 1804, 1809 (2023); see also Treaty Between the United States of America 

and the Navajo Tribe of Indians, June 1, 1868, 15 Stat. 667 (ratified Aug. 12, 

1868) (“Treaty of 1868”). “In exchange for the Navajos’ promise not to 

engage in further war, the United States established a large reservation for 

the Navajos in their original homeland,” including a substantial section of 

northeastern Arizona. Arizona, 143 S. Ct. at 1809–10. Apart from providing

for designated tribal land, the Treaty of 1868 established “the Navajo Tribe 

as a sovereign entity” possessing “the right of self-government” within its 

territorial boundaries. Begay v. Roberts, 167 Ariz. 375, 379 (App. 1990). 

Indeed, as recognized by the United States Supreme Court, both the federal 

government and the Navajo Tribe “[i]mplicit[ly] . . . underst[oo]d” that 

under the treaty, “the internal affairs of the Indians remained exclusively

within the jurisdiction of whatever tribal government existed.” Williams v. 

Lee, 358 U.S. 217, 221–22 (1959) (emphasis added). Consistent with this

understanding, courts construed the Treaty of 1868 “to preclude state court 

jurisdiction over Navajos living on the reservation” in matters arising from

on-reservation activity. Begay, 167 Ariz. at 379; see also McClanahan v. State 

Tax Comm’n of Ariz., 411 U.S. 164, 168–69, 175 (1973) (construing the Treaty 

of 1868 as precluding the “extension of state law . . . to Indians on the Navajo 

Reservation” and holding that under the “Indian sovereignty doctrine,” 

tribal nations “hav[e] territorial boundaries, within which their authority is 

exclusive . . . [and] state law . . . ha[s] no role to play within the reservation 

boundaries”).

¶10 More than forty-five years ago, in Enriquez v. Superior Court, 

this court squarely addressed the precise issue raised in this 

appeal—whether state courts may exercise jurisdiction over a civil tort 

action brought by a non-tribal member against an enrolled tribal member 

for damages resulting from a motor vehicle accident that occurred on a state 

highway within the limits of the tribal reservation on which the enrolled 

member resided. 115 Ariz. 342, 342–43 (App. 1977). To resolve that

question, this court looked to: (1) the United States Supreme Court’s 

opinion in Williams, 358 U.S. at 220, 222–23, holding that absent federal 
MEDINA v. CHEE, et al.

Opinion of the Court

5

legislation, state courts may not exercise jurisdiction over on-reservation 

activity because doing so would undermine the authority of tribal courts 

and infringe on the right of tribal members to make their laws and govern 

themselves; and (2) a federal criminal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1151(a), which 

defines “Indian country” to include “all land within the limits of any Indian 

reservation . . . including rights-of-way running through the reservation.”

Enriquez, 115 Ariz. at 343. While acknowledging that 18 U.S.C. § 1151, on its 

face, “is concerned only with criminal jurisdiction,” this court construed its 

definition of “Indian country” as applying “as well to questions of civil 

jurisdiction,” concluding that the tribe’s “granting of an easement” to the 

state for the highway “did not alter the status of the highway as being 

‘Indian country.’” Id. Having determined that the accident occurred on 

tribal land, this court reasoned that under Williams’ infringement test, the 

state court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the tort action brought 

against a tribal member: “[Tribes’] right of self-government includes the 

right to decide what conduct on the reservation will subject the Indians 

living there to civil liability in the Tribal court.” Id.

¶11 In her briefing, Medina concedes that no Arizona case has 

overruled Enriquez, but she argues that subsequent case law calls into 

question its continuing viability. Specifically, she contends that since 

Enriquez, the jurisdictional analysis has evolved considerably under federal 

precedent—most notably, a series of United States Supreme Court cases

—to apply much stricter limitations on the reach of tribal jurisdiction.

Accordingly, Medina urges us to “revisit and reverse” Enriquez applying 

the current jurisdictional framework.

¶12 In addressing Medina’s argument, we briefly return to 

Williams. In that case, the United States Supreme Court held that Arizona 

courts lacked jurisdiction over a civil collection action brought by a non-tribal 

member—who operated a general store on the Navajo reservation—against 

two enrolled tribal members—who purchased goods from the store on credit. 

358 U.S. at 217–18, 223. Recounting the lengthy and complex history of 

relations between tribes and the federal government, the Supreme Court 

distilled the relevant inquiry to whether “state action” would “infringe[] on 

the right of reservation Indians to make their own laws and be ruled by 

them.” Id. at 218–21. Absent federal legislation expressly limiting the 

authority granted to the Navajos in the Treaty of 1868, the Supreme Court 

held that Arizona state courts may not exercise authority over enrolled tribal 

members for on-reservation conduct, even when such conduct involves

non-tribal members, because doing so would undermine tribal authority. 

Id. at 223.
MEDINA v. CHEE, et al.

Opinion of the Court

6

¶13 Without overruling Williams, the United States Supreme 

Court, in subsequent cases, outlined a separate analytic framework for 

resolving conflicts between state and tribal jurisdiction. While the Williams’ 

infringement test considers the scope of state court jurisdiction over an enrolled

tribal member, these more recent cases approach jurisdictional conflicts 

differently, exploring the extent of tribal court jurisdiction over non-tribal 

members. C’Hair v. Dist. Court of Ninth Judicial Dist., 357 P.3d 723, 728, ¶ 17 

(Wyo. 2015) (contrasting the infringement test pronounced in Williams, 

“which looks to whether a state’s exercise of jurisdiction over a matter will 

infringe on tribal self government,” with the analytic approach adopted in 

Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 547–48 (1981), “which looks to 

whether tribal sovereignty requires tribal jurisdiction over a non-Indian or 

non-Indian activities”).

¶14 In Montana, the United States Supreme Court considered a 

tribe’s authority to prohibit hunting and fishing by non-tribal members on land 

within the tribe’s territorial boundaries but held by non-tribal members in 

fee simple under an allotment act that permitted enrolled tribal members to 

“alienate [their] land to a non-Indian after holding it for 25 years.” Holding 

that a tribe has no power to regulate non-tribal members’ activities on land 

owned in fee by non-tribal members, the Supreme Court reasoned: “If 

Congress had wished to extend tribal jurisdiction to lands owned by 

non-Indians, it could easily have done so by incorporating” 18 U.S.C. 

§ 1151’s definition of “Indian country” into 18 U.S.C. § 1165, the statute 

governing hunting and fishing on tribal land. 450 U.S. at 562. Considering 

the scope of the “inherent powers retained by tribes and those divested,” 

the Supreme Court determined that tribes lack the authority to 

“independently [] determine their external relations” but may exercise 

“civil jurisdiction over non-Indians on their reservations, even on 

non-Indian fee lands” within their territorial boundaries, when: (1) 

non-tribal members enter consensual relationships with the tribe or its 

enrolled members, or (2) “the conduct of non-Indians on fee lands within 

[the] reservation . . . threatens or has some direct effect on the political 

integrity, the economic security, or the health or welfare of the tribe.” Id. at 

564–66 (concluding the “exercise of tribal power beyond what is necessary 

to protect tribal self-government or to control internal relations is 

inconsistent with the dependent status of the tribes”). 

¶15 While Montana primarily focused on the regulatory authority

of tribes over conduct arising on land held in fee simple by non-tribal 

members within tribal territorial boundaries, the circumstances at issue in 

Strate, 520 U.S. at 453, involved adjudicatory jurisdiction. In Strate, a 

non-tribal member (the plaintiff) driving her car along a highway on tribal 
MEDINA v. CHEE, et al.

Opinion of the Court

7

land (but maintained by the State under a right-of-way) collided with a 

commercial vehicle owned and driven by non-tribal members. Id. at 

442–43. The plaintiff sued the driver and the commercial vehicle owner in 

tribal court in tort for injuries sustained. Id. at 443–44. Pointing to Montana

as “the pathmarking case concerning tribal civil authority over

nonmembers,” the Supreme Court reiterated that “tribes lack civil authority 

over the conduct of nonmembers on non-Indian land within a reservation,

subject to two exceptions”: (1) non-tribal members who enter consensual 

relationships with the tribe or its enrolled members, and (2) activity that 

directly affects the tribe’s political integrity, economic security, health, or 

welfare. Id. at 445–47 (emphasis added). 

¶16 Rejecting the plaintiff’s contention that the Montana analysis 

did not apply because the accident occurred on tribal land, the Supreme 

Court reasoned that a right-of-way for a state highway on tribal land is 

“equivalent, for nonmember governance purposes, to alienated, non-Indian 

land” because it “is open to the public.” Id. at 454 (emphasis added). In other 

words, because tribes must consent to such rights-of-way and receive “the 

payment of just compensation,” and state highways “[are] subject to the 

State’s control,” tort actions against non-tribal members for conduct arising 

on such highways falls within the Montana jurisdictional framework. Id. at 

454–456 (quoting 25 U.S.C. §§ 324–25). Accordingly, a tribal court may 

exercise jurisdiction over an “action against nonmembers” arising on a state 

right-of-way only if “one of Montana’s two exceptions” applies. Id. at 456

(emphasis added). 

¶17 Quickly dispensing with the first exception, Strate held that 

tortious conduct does not qualify as a consensual relationship. Id. at 

456–57. Concerning the second exception, the Supreme Court 

acknowledged that “careless” driving “on a public highway running 

through a reservation endanger[s] all in the vicinity, and surely 

jeopardize[s] the safety of tribal members.” Id. at 458. But despite this 

generalized danger, the Supreme Court concluded that tribes need

“[n]either regulatory nor adjudicatory authority over [] state highway 

accident[s] . . . to preserve” their right “to make their own laws and be ruled 

by them,” lest “the exception would severely shrink the rule.” Id. at 457–59

(internal quotations omitted). Accordingly, the Supreme Court determined 

that the “Montana rule”—no tribal court jurisdiction over non-tribal 

members’ conduct on “non-Indian fee land”—applied, not its exceptions. 

Id. at 459.

¶18 Harmonizing Montana and Strate, the United States Supreme 

Court in Nevada v. Hicks expressly “reject[ed] tribal authority to regulate 
MEDINA v. CHEE, et al.

Opinion of the Court

8

nonmembers’ activities on land over which [a] tribe c[an] not assert a 

landowner’s right to occupy and exclude.” 533 U.S. 353, 359 (2001) 

(emphasis added) (internal quotation omitted). Further distilling the scope 

of tribal authority, the Supreme Court declared: “[T]he absence of tribal 

ownership has been virtually conclusive of the absence of tribal civil 

jurisdiction; with one minor [taxing authority] exception, we have never 

upheld under Montana the extension of tribal civil authority over 

nonmembers on non-Indian land.” Id. at 360 (emphasis added). To exercise 

jurisdiction over non-tribal members, the Supreme Court explained, tribal 

authority “must be connected to th[e]right of the Indians to make their own 

laws and be governed by them.” Id. at 361. Recognizing that precedent 

historically described tribes as “sovereign entities,” the Supreme Court 

clarified that under the modern jurisdictional framework, “[s]tate 

sovereignty does not end at a reservation’s border,” meaning states “may 

regulate the activities even of tribe members on tribal land” when the state’s

interests “are implicated.” Id. at 361–62 (emphasis added).

¶19 Having reviewed these governing United States Supreme 

Court decisions, we return to the facts of this case. Because Arizona has not 

assumed general civil jurisdiction over Indian tribes and their members as 

federal law would allow, Pub. L. 83-280, § 3, 67 Stat. 590, its authority to 

address disputes involving tribal members for on-reservation conduct is 

limited by the jurisdictional framework pronounced by the United States 

Supreme Court. See R.J. Williams Co. v. Fort Belknap Housing Authority, 719 

F.2d 979, 983 n.3 (9th Cir. 1983); see also 28 U.S.C. §§ 1322, 1360.

¶20 The question is whether the state court may preside over a tort 

action against enrolled tribal members predicated on conduct that occurred 

within the tribe’s territorial boundaries. To answer that question, we must 

examine the scope of state court jurisdiction, not determine the extent of 

tribal court jurisdiction. Cf. Smith Plumbing Co., Inc. v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 

149 Ariz. 545, 550 (App. 1984) (concluding that the existence of jurisdiction 

in tribal court does not preempt jurisdiction in state court). Therefore, this 

case falls squarely under Williams’ framework, which holds that a state 

court may exercise jurisdiction over a dispute brought by a non-tribal 

member against an enrolled tribal member for conduct arising on tribal 

land only if that exercise of jurisdiction does not violate federal law or 

infringe on the right of enrolled tribal members “to make their own laws 

and be ruled by them.” 358 U.S. at 220.

¶21 Under this infringement test, state courts lack subject matter 

jurisdiction if: (1) a non-tribal member brings a claim against an enrolled

tribal member for conduct occurring on that member’s reservation, or (2) 
MEDINA v. CHEE, et al.

Opinion of the Court

9

all parties are enrolled tribal members of the same tribe and the claim 

involves conduct occurring on that tribe’s reservation. Winer v. Penny Enter., 

Inc., 674 N.W.2d 9, 12–13 (N.D. 2004) (citing Williams, 358 U.S. at 223; Fisher 

v. District Court, 424 U.S. 382, 387–89 (1976)); see also Smith Plumbing Co., 

Inc., 149 Ariz. 524, 529 (1986) (noting the United States Supreme Court “has 

repeatedly recognized that tribal courts have inherent power to adjudicate 

civil disputes affecting the interests of Indians and non-Indians which are 

based upon events occurring on the reservation”) (citation omitted).

Medina does not contest that a tribal court has exclusive subject matter 

jurisdiction in such cases. Instead, she argues that under Montana and its 

progeny, a state-maintained highway—located on a right-of-way granted 

to the state from a tribal nation—is not tribal land. Stated differently, 

according to Medina, U.S. Highway 89, for jurisdictional purposes, is 

non-Indian fee land.1

¶22 In evaluating a state court’s subject matter jurisdiction over a 

case involving both enrolled tribal member and non-tribal member parties, 

“whether the nonmember party is a plaintiff or a defendant” is the “most 

important” factor. Salish Kootenai Coll., 434 F.3d at 1131, 1135 (“The 

ownership status of the land . . . is only one factor to consider[.]”). In other 

words, “[i]t is the membership status of the unconsenting party, not the 

status of real property, that counts as the primary jurisdictional fact.” Hicks, 

533 U.S. at 382 (Souter, J., concurring); see also Smith Plumbing Co., Inc., 149 

Ariz. at 530 (“A reservation Indian could not reasonably expect to be haled 

into Arizona state court because of [actions] occurring wholly on the 

reservation.”); State v. Zaman, 194 Ariz. 442, 442, ¶ 2 (1999) (“For 

on-reservation activities, the status of the defendant as an Indian or 

non-Indian is the sine qua non of federal Indian law.”); State v. Zaman, 190 

Ariz. 208, 210 (1997) (explaining that “following Williams, . . . application of 

1 In her reply brief, Medina alternatively argues, for the first time, that 

the Defendants’ alleged tortious conduct occurred on state land because 

Cody began drinking—and Chee entrusted him with Grandson’s vehicle

—long before reaching the section of U.S. Highway 89 traversing the 

Navajo Nation (as demonstrated by Cody’s blood alcohol content of .336). 

She also asserts that Cody began speeding and driving erratically at least 

one mile before Grandson’s vehicle crossed into the Navajo Nation’s 

territorial boundaries. Because Medina failed to raise these arguments in 

her opening brief—instead framing the appeal as presenting “a purely legal 

question”—we do not address them. In re Marriage of Pownall, 197 Ariz. 577, 

583, ¶ 25 n.5 (App. 2000) (holding arguments raised for the first time in a 

reply brief are waived).
MEDINA v. CHEE, et al.

Opinion of the Court

10

the infringement test in the adjudicatory setting has protected Indian 

defendants from nonconsensual state court jurisdiction”).

¶23 Without question, the United States Supreme Court 

concluded in Strate that the state-maintained highway on which the 

accident occurred was the equivalent of non-Indian fee land. 520 U.S. at 454. 

But in reaching that conclusion, the Supreme Court carefully limited its

equivalence determination to actions against non-tribal members. Id.; see

also Salish Kootenai Coll., 434 F.3d at 1137 (explaining that the United States 

Supreme Court framed the issue in Strate “as concerning the adjudicatory 

authority of tribal courts over personal injury actions against defendants who 

are not tribal members,” ultimately holding that “tribal courts may not 

entertain claims against nonmembers arising out of accidents on state 

highways”) (quoting Strate, 520 U.S. at 442). Thus, under Strate, the 

classification of a right-of-way located within a tribe’s territorial 

boundaries, for jurisdictional purposes, depends upon the enrolled 

member or non-tribal member status of the defendant.

¶24 As Medina correctly notes, the United States Supreme Court, 

since Montana, has curtailed the scope of tribal authority, and may yet hold 

that state rights-of-way within tribal territorial boundaries are the 

equivalent of non-Indian fee land for jurisdictional purposes in all cases, 

regardless of the nonconsenting party’s status. See Winer, 674 N.W.2d at 15, 

¶ 15 (stating “[i]t is not yet clear whether Strate forecasts” a complete 

“erosion” of the Williams’ analysis for “state rights-of-way”) (quoting W. 

Canby, Jr., American Indian Law in a Nutshell, 175–76 (3rd ed. 1998)). But to 

date, the Supreme Court has not done so, nor do we.

¶25 Given its precise limiting language, we conclude that Strate

does not supplant Williams. Applying the infringement test, we hold that 

the broad authority granted to the Navajo tribe to govern its enrolled tribal 

members under the Treaty of 1868 precludes the state court from exercising

jurisdiction over this tort action. As federal precedent makes clear, a 

plaintiff bringing a claim against an enrolled tribal member cannot hale that 

nonconsenting defendant into state court for torts arising from conduct on 

the defendant’s reservation, even on a state highway open under an 

easement. In this case, had the superior court resolved Medina’s claims on 

the merits, it would have undermined the Navajo tribal court’s authority

and infringed on the Navajos’ ability “to make their own laws and be ruled 

by them.” Williams, 358 U.S. at 220; Salish Kootenai Coll., 434 F.3d at 1140–41 

(explaining a tribe’s “system of tort is an important means by which [it] 

regulate[s] the domestic and commercial relations of its members”); see also

Holly C. v. Tohono O’Odham Nation, 247 Ariz. 495, 515, ¶ 59 (App. 2019) 
MEDINA v. CHEE, et al.

Opinion of the Court

11

(“Arizona courts properly refuse to accept jurisdiction over a case when 

doing so ‘would undermine the authority of the tribal courts.’”) (quoting 

Williams, 358 U.S. at 223). Therefore, the superior court properly dismissed 

the consolidated complaints for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.2

CONCLUSION

¶26 For the foregoing reasons, we affirm.

2 In reaching our conclusion, we recognize that at least one state court, 

in grappling with a jurisdictional conflict in a tort action brought by a 

non-tribal member against enrolled tribal members, determined that under 

“the principles announced in Strate,” a state highway “is the equivalent of 

non-Indian fee land” for jurisdictional purposes. C’Hair, 357 P.3d at 725, 

738, ¶¶ 1, 49–50. This reasoning is not binding and, in our view, stops short 

of giving full effect to the precise language used by the United States 

Supreme Court in Strate limiting the application of its equivalence 

determination to cases brought against non-tribal members.