Opinion ID: 760509
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Appellate Jurisdiction in the Second Case.

Text: 17 Defendants argue we have no jurisdiction over the second appeal because the district court did not rule on the merits of the State's preliminary injunction motion but simply transferred venue in the case to the Western District. We agree. The merits of the State's request for a preliminary injunction were not addressed at the motion hearing. Several times during that hearing, the court advised the State it could raise the preliminary injunction issue after transfer to the Western District. At the end of the hearing, the court explained, the transfer is really the basis of everything. Although the court's written order recited that the State's request for a preliminary injunction was denied, it contained no findings of fact and conclusions of law supporting the denial of an injunction, as Rule 52 requires. We conclude the court intended simply to transfer a pending injunction motion, not to deny an injunction on the merits. Therefore, its transfer order is not appealable under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). See Liddell v. Board of Educ., 105 F.3d 1208, 1212 (8th Cir.1997); Rodgers v. United States Steel Corp., 541 F.2d 365, 372 (3d Cir.1976). It is well-settled that an interlocutory order transferring venue is not otherwise appealable. See United States Fire Ins. Co. v. American Family Life Assur. Co., 787 F.2d 438 (8th Cir.1986).II. Subject Matter Jurisdiction and the IGRA. 18 The State argues the district court lacks subject matter jurisdiction and therefore erred in denying the State's motion to remand. A case may be removed only if it could be brought in federal court originally. See 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a). Absent diversity of citizenship ... federal jurisdiction exists only when a federal question is presented on the face of the plaintiff's properly pleaded complaint. Caterpillar, Inc. v. Williams, 482 U.S. 386, 392, 107 S.Ct. 2425, 96 L.Ed.2d 318 (1987). Normally, the presence of a federal defense such as IGRA preemption will not support removal, even if the federal defense is the only contested issue in the case. However, when a federal statute has preempt[ed] a field of law so completely that state law claims are considered to be converted into federal causes of action, then an action purporting to plead preempted state law claims is removable. Dorsey, 88 F.3d at 543. The question here, as in Dorsey, is whether the IGRA has this extraordinary preemptive power to completely preempt the state law claims at issue. We review these jurisdictional issues de novo. See United States v. Thunder Hawk, 127 F.3d 705, 706 (8th Cir.1997). 19 In Dorsey, casino management companies sued a Twin Cities law firm, asserting state law claims such as fraud and breach of fiduciary duty arising out of the parties' conduct during the licensing of a tribal casino on Indian lands in Wisconsin. The law firm removed, claiming complete IGRA preemption. The district court remanded the entire case to state court, and we reversed. After reviewing the IGRA's language and legislative history under the Supreme Court's complete preemption precedents, we concluded that Congress had completely preempted the field of regulating gaming activities on Indian lands. See 88 F.3d at 542-48. We then examined the specific state law claims at issue to see whether they fell within the preemptive scope of the IGRA. We concluded that at least some of the claims were preempted because they potentially interfered with the Tribe's casino licensing process, a process mandated and regulated by the IGRA. The district court had erred in remanding those preempted claims. 20 In this case, the district court denied the State's motion to remand without deciding whether the Tribe's internet lottery is conducted on Indian lands. The court gave two reasons for this decision--because the Indian lands issue is a question of federal law warranting federal jurisdiction, and because the court construed our opinion in Dorsey as extending IGRA complete preemption to include all claims which may interfere with tribal governance of gaming. We disagree. 21 As our opinion in Dorsey explained at length, the IGRA established a comprehensive regulatory regime for tribal gaming activities on Indian lands. Both the language of the statute and its legislative history refer only to gaming on Indian lands. See, e.g., 25 U.S.C. § 2701; S.Rep. No. 100-446, reprinted in 1988 U.S.C.C.A.N. 3071, 3071-3083. The Indians' long-standing rights and interests in controlling activities on their tribal lands, and the States' correspondingly limited power to regulate activities on tribal lands except as authorized by Congress, are core principles underlying the IGRA that necessarily frame the scope of its preemptive force. See generally California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, 480 U.S. 202, 107 S.Ct. 1083, 94 L.Ed.2d 244 (1987) (the Supreme Court decision to which Congress responded in IGRA). Our conclusion in Dorsey that the IGRA preempted claims interfering with tribal gaming must be viewed in the context of an IGRA-regulated licensing of casino gaming that was indisputably conducted solely on Indian lands. In our view, the district court's reasoning simply proves too much. Once a tribe leaves its own lands and conducts gambling activities on state lands, nothing in the IGRA suggests that Congress intended to preempt the State's historic right to regulate this controversial class of economic activities. For example, if the State of Missouri sought an injunction against the Tribe conducting an internet lottery from a Kansas City hotel room, or a floating crap game in the streets of St. Louis, the IGRA should not completely preempt such a law enforcement action simply because the injunction might interfere with tribal governance of gaming.Placed in proper perspective, we think the issue whether the Tribe's lottery is conducted on Indian lands is critical to whether the State's claims fall within the preemptive force of the IGRA, which in turn determines whether the district court has subject matter jurisdiction over the removed action. The on-Indian-lands question is one of federal law, but its unresolved presence is not enough to confer federal subject matter jurisdiction over the entire case. If the Tribe's lottery is being conducted on its lands, then the IGRA completely preempts the State's attempt to regulate or prohibit. See 25 U.S.C. § 2710(d)(1). But if the lottery is being conducted on Missouri lands, the IGRA does not preempt the state law claims--indeed, it does not even appear to provide a federal defense--and the case must be remanded to state court. 4 22 Accordingly, in case No. 98-1520, the district court's orders of September 29, 1997, and November 19, 1997, are vacated, and the case is remanded to the Western District of Missouri for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. On remand, the court must initially determine whether the Tribe's internet lottery is a gaming activity on Indian lands of the Tribe. See 25 U.S.C. §§ 2702(3), 2710(d). If the court concludes the lottery is not conducted on Indian lands when a participant plays from a computer located in Missouri, it must grant the State's motion to remand, and the issue of tribal sovereignty will be decided in the first instance by the state courts. 5 23 In case No. 98-1554, we dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. The State's motion to strike a portion of the defendants' brief and the defendants' motions to file a supplemental appendix and to supplement the record on appeal are denied as moot. 24