Opinion ID: 775203
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Garcia's Claim

Text: 22 Several circumstances in this case, considered together, militate against abstention in this case, and suggest deference instead to the competing doctrine that a federal court must fulfill its virtually unflagging obligation... to exercise [its] jurisdiction. Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 817 (1976).
23 The appellees argue deference to the tribal forum, and identify the tribal forum as the Tribal Council. Appellees' Brief at 36 n.14. However, we have recognized that the St. Regis Mohawk tribe has a tripartite government and that the Tribal Council is the legislative branch. See Basil Cook Enters., 117 F.3d at 67. Apparently in 1996 or 1997, an independent Tribal Court was being organized pursuant to recent constitutional reform. See id. at 64, 67-68; Basil Cook Enters. v. St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, 914 F. Supp. 839, 842 (N.D.N.Y. 1996). But in May 1997, Chief Judge MacAvoy found in an unrelated case that tribal court exhaustion would be futile because the St. Regis Mohawk tribal court was no longer operative. MacEwen Petroleum, Inc. v. Tarbell, 173 F.R.D. 36, 41 (N.D.N.Y. 1992). Subsequently, in another episode in the Basil Cook litigation, Chief Judge MacAvoy received an affidavit from the Tribal Court Admistrator that the court has always remained open, Basil Cook Enters. v. St. Regis Mohawk Tribe, 26 F. Supp. 2d 446, 448 (N.D.N.Y. 1998), and a similar statement by letter from Chief Judge Deom of the Tribal Court, see id. at 449. 24 It appears from published opinions that a tribal court has existed and may exist now. However, appellees in this case seek remand to the Tribal Council itself. Abstention would result in some uncertainty as to the tribal forum for resolution of this controversy. 2 In any event, no dispute is currently being pursued in any tribal forum. Moreover, neither party in this proceeding has challenged the authority of the tribal court to act. Therefore, the existence of a federal proceeding does not implicate or in any way impair the authority of the tribal court to proceed. If a tribal proceeding were pending, our analysis might well be different.
25 The party seeking relief in federal court--Garcia--is not a member of the tribe that she is suing; the dispute is therefore not intra-tribal. See Tsosie, 92 F.3d at 1042-43 (finding that exhaustion was required in part because the dispute here is between two Navajo Indians).
26 Garcia's theories of liability are grounded (if anywhere) on federal and state law, not tribal law. 3 LaPlante, 480 U.S. at 16; see also Altheimer & Gray, 983 F.2d at 814 (refusing to require abstention because inter alia the dispute does not concern a tribal ordinance as much as it does state and federal law). This factor seems particularly important in light of the Supreme Court's recent opinion in El Paso Natural Gas Co. v. Netzsosie, 526 U.S. 473, 484 (1999). 27 In El Paso Natural Gas, Navajos sued in tribal court, alleging that atomic energy companies were liable under Navajo tort law for injuries resulting from the mining of uranium on the Navajo Indian Reservation. See id. at 477. The companies countered by bringing a federal suit under the Price-Anderson Act, which (i) preempts all claims arising out of a nuclear incident, 42 U.S.C. § 2014(w); (ii) makes such claims removable to federal court from state court; and (iii) provides that a federal judge must determine whether the Act applies in cases where removal is contested. See El Paso Natural Gas, 526 U.S. at 484-85; 42 U.S.C. § 2210(n)(2). The lower courts abstained under the tribal exhaustion rule. See El Paso Natural Gas, 526 U.S. at 478. Reversing, the Supreme Court held that the applicability of the Price-Anderson Act must be decided in federal court, and suggested that application of the federal statute would require a transfer of the liability claims from the tribal court to the federal forum. See id. at 483 n.5, 487-88; cf. id. at 486 n.7 (noting the rare provisions for removal in the Act's preemption section and suggesting that the existence of a federal preemption defense in the more usual sense would [not] affect the logic of tribal exhaustion). 28 The opening paragraph of El Paso Natural Gas can be read to say that the tribal exhaustion rule does not require abstention where the underlying, substantive claim would be removable to federal court if brought initially in state court. 4 Since Garcia's claims would be removable if brought initially in a state court, see 28 U.S.C. § 1441(a)-(c), El Paso Natural Gas offers a potential alternative basis for our ruling in this case. We do not rely on El Paso Natural Gas, however, because that opinion elsewhere emphasizes and relies upon the extraordinarily powerful congressional preference that nuclear accident claims be adjudicated in federal court, and it is therefore possible that the opinion is statute-specific. See El Paso Natural Gas, 526 U.S. at 486 (noting that the Act provides clear indications of the congressional aims of speed and efficiency). 29