Opinion ID: 1445206
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Nation's Sovereign Immunity with Respect to the State's Remaining Claims

Text: While federal jurisdiction exists with respect to all the State's remaining causes of action, the Nation's sovereign immunity still barred these claims from being brought against it unless this immunity had been waived by the tribe or unequivocally abrogated by Congress. See C & L Enters., Inc. v. Citizen Band Potawatomi Indian Tribe, 532 U.S. 411, 418, 121 S.Ct. 1589, 149 L.Ed.2d 623 (2001); see also Oklahoma Tax Comm'n v. Citizen Band Potawatomi Indian Tribe, 498 U.S. 505, 509, 111 S.Ct. 905, 909, 112 L.Ed.2d 1112 (1991). The Supreme Court has held that Congress did not abrogate state sovereign immunity in the Supplemental Jurisdiction Act, Raygor v. Regents of Univ. of Minn., 534 U.S. 533, 541-42, 122 S.Ct. 999, 152 L.Ed.2d 27 (2002), and we find no indication Congress intended a contrary result with respect to tribal sovereign immunity under this statute. Similarly, the State has not argued that 25 U.S.C. § 2710(d)(7)(A)(i) or the FAA contains such an abrogation on Congress's part. Thus, the district court's ability to hear these remaining claims depends upon whether the Nation has waived its sovereign immunity. The Nation and the State both waived their respective sovereign immunity in Paragraph 11, Section XXIV.B of the Second Amendment to the Compact, which provides: The Nation and the State expressly waive, to the extent the State or the Tribe may do so pursuant to law, any and all sovereign immunity with respect to any claim brought by the State or the Nation to enforce any provision of this Compact, as amended. The Nation argues that the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision in Panzer, which held that [t]he Governor lacked any inherent authority to waive the state's sovereign immunity, Panzer, 680 N.W.2d at 700, rendered the State's sovereign immunity in the Second Amendment unenforceable, which in turn revoked the Nation's waiver of its sovereign immunity. The district court did not squarely address this issue in its memorandum and order on the Nation's motion for summary judgment. The district court did however, hold that the Panzer decision did not constitute a determination by a court of competent jurisdiction that the Duration provision in the Second Amendment was unenforceable or invalid. The Nation contends that the district court's decision regarding Panzer's effect on the Duration provision's validity effectively amounted to a determination that the Nation's waiver of its sovereign Immunity had not been revoked. Based on this reasoning, the Nation urges this Court to review, pursuant to the collateral order doctrine, the district court's holding regarding Panzer's applicability to the Compact. The State questions whether the collateral order doctrine properly gives this Court appellate jurisdiction to determine the Panzer decision's effect on the parties' Compact. According to the State, even if the Panzer holding was applicable to the State's waiver of its sovereign immunity in the Second Amendment, this did not have the effect of revoking the Nation's waiver of its sovereign immunity. We find this to be the case, and thus need not address on interlocutory appeal the merits of the district court's finding that Panzer did not render the Second Amendment's Duration clause invalid or unenforceable. Panzer held that the Governor lacked the inherent or delegated power to waive the State's sovereign immunity, and did not address a tribe's authority to waive its sovereign immunity. See Panzer, 680 N.W.2d at 700-01. Therefore, even if the Wisconsin Supreme Court's holding in Panzer served as a finding by a court of competent jurisdiction for purposes of the Second Amendment, it would only constitute a finding that the waiver of the State's sovereign immunity was invalid or unenforceable. The Nation does not offer a reference to any specific provision in the Second Amendment that provides that such a finding with respect to the State's sovereign immunity serves to automatically revoke the Nation's waiver of its immunity. Instead, the only provisions to explicitly address the Nation's ability to revoke its sovereign immunity waiver, Paragraph 11, Section XXIV.E & F in the Second Amendment, in both cases provide that such a revocation may only occur when the Nation is unable to obtain a judicial remedy or resolution as a result of the State's immunity from suit. At no point during the course of this ongoing litigation between the parties has the State invoked its sovereign immunity. Therefore, even if the Panzer decision did serve to invalidate the State's sovereign immunity waiver in the Compact, the Nation's waiver of its immunity remains intact since the State has never invoked its immunity from suit, during the course of litigation with the Nation. Accordingly, because a contrary determination on our part with respect to the district court's holding that Panzer did not render the Duration provision unenforceable or invalid would not negate the Nation's waiver of sovereign immunity under the Compact, we hold that we do not have jurisdiction to address the merits of that decision on interlocutory appeal.