Opinion ID: 1438862
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Immunity and the Base and Blotter Contract

Text: There is no contractual waiver of the Tribe's sovereign immunity in the Base and Blotter contract. The Base and Blotter contract contained the Tribe's consent to suit in its Tribal Court, with no arbitration provision. A sovereign tribe has full authority to limit any waiver of immunity to which it consents. See Missouri River Svcs. v. Omaha Tribe of Neb., 267 F.3d 848, 852 (8th Cir.2001). Absent any other facts, the Tribe's immunity to C & W's state court suit would remain intact. But other facts developed. C & W's arbitration demand included claims arising from the Base and Blotter contract. The Tribe not only raised no objection, it responded, raising its own arbitral counterclaims under the same contract. The Tribe then went further. In a legal memorandum to the arbitrator, the Tribe first noted the Base and Blotter contract's written waiver extended only to the Oglala Sioux Tribal Court. But as the Tribe explicitly stated: The Tribe has not objected to the claimant's inclusion of the Base and Blotter claim in the Arbitration Demand, however, for the sake of expediency in resolving the dispute on its merits. See supra. Wholly mindful that a waiver of sovereign immunity must be clearly expressed, we hold that, under these conditions, where there are contractual arbitration agreements and a tribe actively participates in that arbitration, and in the course of that arbitration raises its own affirmative claims involving a clearly-related matter, the Tribe voluntarily and explicitly waives any immunity respecting that related matter. We recognize, also, the AAA Rules requiring jurisdictional objections to be filed in the answer. Here, when the Tribe actively opted into the arbitrationincluding the Base and Blotter contractit bound itself to the AAA's rules and the procedural regime they encompass. If a tribe were allowed to operate under AAA rules, and after an adverse decision assert sovereign immunity and then walk away, it would convert sovereignty from a shield into a sword. A tribe could, with impunity, thumb its nose at authority to which it had voluntarily acquiesced. Sovereignty does not extend so far.