Court Opinion

ID: 9787740
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:23:37.127142+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:00.114257
License: Public Domain

COLBERT, J.,
concurring specially.
1 1 I concur in today's pronouncement that the District Court of the State of Oklahoma is "a court of competent jurisdiction," as that term is used in the gaming compact between the Cherokee Nation and the State of Oklahoma, for the adjudication of a patron's claim against the tribal enterprise for personal injury suffered on the premises of the tribe's casino operated on tribal land. I write separately to articulate the rationale underlying my agreement with that result.
1 2 As a matter of black-letter law, "Indian tribes are immune from lawsuit or court process in both state and federal court unless *467'Congress has authorized the suit or the tribe has waived its immunity.'" Felix S. Cohen, Cohen's Handbook of Federal Indian Law, 635 (Nell Jessup Newton et al. eds., Lexis Nexis Matthew Bender rev. ed.2005)[hereinafter Cohen 2005 Handbook (quoting Kiowa Tribe v. Mfg. Technologies, Inc., 523 U.S. 751, 754, 118 S.Ct. 1700, 140 L.Ed.2d 981 (1998)); See also Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation v. Wold Eng'g, 476 U.S. 877, 890-891, 106 S.Ct. 2305, 90 L.Ed.2d 881 (1986); Puyallup Tribe v. Dep't of Game, 433 U.S. 165, 172-173, 97 S.Ct. 2616, 53 L.Ed.2d 667 (1977). A tribe's sovereign immunity extends to its commercial as well as governmental activities Kiowa Tribe, 523 U.S. at 759, 118 S.Ct. 1700. "Tribal sovereign immunity protects a tribal corporation owned by a tribe and created under its own laws, absent express waiver of immunity by the tribe or Congressional abrogation." Wright v. Colville Tribal Ent. Corp., 159 Wash.2d 108, 147 P.3d 1275, 1278 (2006)(citing Kiowa Tribe, 523 U.S. at 754, 118 S.Ct. 1700). State judicial jurisdiction over Indian tribes and tribal members in Indian country is generally precluded in the absence of express authorization by treaty or by Congress. Cohen 2005 Handbook at 521. "Indian country includes 'all lands set aside by whatever means for the residence of tribal Indians under federal protection, together with trust and restricted Indian allotments.' " Id. at 520 (quoting Okla. Tax Comm'n v. Sac & Fox Nation, 508 U.S. 114, 125, 113 S.Ct. 1985, 124 L.Ed.2d 30 (1993)).
T3 Congress enacted the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), 25 U.S.C. §§ 2701-2721; 18 U.S.C. 1166-1168 (2000), "to provide a statutory basis for the operation of gaming by Indian tribes as a means of promoting tribal economic development, self-sufficiency, and strong tribal governments." 25 U.S.C. § 2702(1). Congress has "partially abrogated the immunity of Indian tribes in the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, but only for suits brought by states to enjoin a Class III gaming activity conducted in violation of a tribal-state compact between the tribe and the state pursuant to the Act." Cohen 2005 Handbook at 639 (citing 25 U.S.C. § 2710(d)(7)(ii)) (emphasis added). Although Congress has not abrogated the sovereign immunity of Indian tribes for patron injuries occurring at tribe-owned casinos in Indian country, it has authorized the states and the tribes to enter into gaming compacts. IGRA authorizes such compacts and lists a variety of subjects which may be negotiated, including "any other subjects that are directly related to the operation of gaming activities." 25 U.S.C. § 2710(d)(B8)(C)(vii). As the New Mexico Supreme Court determined in Doe v. Santa Clara Pueblo, 141 N.M. 269, 154 P.3d 644 (2007), IGRA's grant of authority was sufficient to permit a tribe's partial waiver of sovereign immunity and to permit the parties to establish concurrent jurisdiction by providing that personal injury claims could "proceed either in binding arbitration ... or in a court of competent jurisdiction" and by defining a "court of competent jurisdiction" to include state courts. Id. at 647. In the New Mexico compact, the tribe "expressly agreed that state tort law would apply to personal injury suits against casinos arising on [tribal] lands." Id. at 648 n. 8.
T4 "Congress envisioned, and authorized, tribes to contract for jurisdiction shifting, if they wished, as part of a much larger, global settlement of complex issues that was necessary to make tribal Gaming work." Id. at 656. Congress, however, merely authorized such provisions, the compacting parties remained free to refrain from making such choices in a gaming compact. "Nothing in IGRA required the tribes to negotiate the subject, nor does anything in IGRA prevent them from doing so." Id. at 657. Therefore, any authority for the District Court of Oklahoma to entertain a suit against a tribal enterprise for a patron's injury must be found in the terms of a congressionally authorized gaming compact entered into pursuant to IGRA.1
*46815 "A compact is a negotiated agreement between two governments." Coker 2005 Handbook at 589 n. 682. Although this Compact's provisions are those of the model gaming compact, codified in the Oklahoma Statutes, the Compact is not derived from state law. See Model Tribal Gaming Compact, Okla. Stat. tit. 3A, § 281 (Supp.2004). It is "a contract, subject to construction and application in accordance with its terms." Texas v. New Mexico, 482 U.S. 124, 107 S.Ct. 2279, 96 L.Ed.2d 105 (1987). As in any issue of contract construction, "[a] contract must be so interpreted as to give effect to the mutual intention of the parties, as it existed at the time of contracting, so far as the same is ascertainable and lawful." Okla. Stat. tit. 15, § 152 (2001). "A fundamental precept of contract law in Oklahoma is that the law will not make a better contract than the parties themselves entered." Roye Realty & Developing, Inc. v. Watson, 1996 OK 93, ¶ 33, 2 P.3d 320, 329. "The whole of a contract is to be taken together, so as to give effect to every part, if reasonably practicable, each clause helping to interpret the others." Okla. Stat. tit. 15, § 157.
T6 Proper construction of this Compact requires an acknowledgment that the two sovereign governments were acutely aware that "[t]ribal courts' jurisdiction to adjudicate matters arising in Indian country is broad, encompassing all civil and eriminal matters absent limitations imposed by lawful federal authority." Cohen 2005 Handbook at 217. The parties expressed their intent that the tribal, federal, and state governments retain their respective spheres of civil adjudicatory and criminal jurisdiction over gaming in Indian country by providing in Part 9: "This Compact shall not alter tribal, federal or state civil adjudicatory or criminal jurisdiction." Had the parties made no provision for patron tort claims, jurisdiction over such claims against the tribal enterprise would have remained exclusively within the jurisdiction of the tribal court and the claim would be subject to the tribe's sovereign immunity defense. However, the parties made specific and extensive provisions for such claims in Part 6 of the Compact and in doing so allocated jurisdiction, but only as to the third-party tort claims of patrons.
17 By this Compact, the tribe waived its immunity from liability for patron tort claims, but only to specified limits of liability insurance coverage or the "corresponding limits under [Oklahoma's] Governmental Tort Claims Act [GTCA, Okla. Stat. tit. 51, §§ 151-200 (2001 & Supp.2007) ] whichever is greater." By simply mirroring the liability limits and certain other provisions of the GTCA, the parties did not agree that Oklahoma law applies to patron tort claims. Rather, the parties set out specific procedures and provisions for the "just and reasonable compensation for a tort claim." Without more, the limits of tribal liability stated in the Compact would have merely limited sovereign immunity in the tribal court, but the Compact's provisions for patron tort claims went further to allocate the forum in which such claims were to be adjudicated.
18 The parties did not specify, as they certainly could, that only the tribal court or only the state court would adjudicate the claims. Instead, the tribe granted its consent to jurisdiction in "a court of competent Jurisdiction" for the limited purpose of the adjudication of such claims. The Compact did not specify whether the parties consid*469ered state district court to be a "court of competent jurisdiction." The intent to permit adjudication of patron tort claims in state court, however, is demonstrated by the provisions of the Compact.
T9 By not selecting existing law and by not selecting a particular forum, the parties granted concurrent jurisdiction to tribal and state courts for the adjudication of patron tort claims against the tribal enterprise. The tribe's "limited consent to suit" in "a court of competent jurisdiction" would not have been necessary if concurrent jurisdiction were not intended because, absent the Compact, claims based on the activity of a tribe in Indian country would belong exclusively within the jurisdiction of the tribal court system. There would have been no need for the tribe to consent to a jurisdiction which it already possessed. Conversely, if the parties had intended patron tort claims to be adjudicated exclusively in state court, the parties could have so provided.
[ 10 The tribe has expressly and unequivocally waived its immunity from suit for patron tort claims in a judicial forum, whether it be state or tribal. The failure of the parties to define the term "a court of competent jurisdiction" in the Compact does not make the waiver of suit immunity equivocal or unclear. The failure to expressly specify that state courts are included in the term does not invalidate the waiver. The United States Supreme Court made that clear in its unanimous decision in C & L Enterprises v. Citizen Band of Potawatomi Indian Tribe, 532 U.S. 411, 121 S.Ct. 1589, 149 L.Ed.2d 623 (2001).
¶11 In C & L, the Court considered what constitutes a valid waiver of a tribe's immunity from suit. The construction contract at issue, which the tribe had entered to obtain a new roof on a building it owned outside Indian country, included an arbitration clause and a choice-of-law provision. Id. at 415, 121 S.Ct. 1589. The Court found a valid waiver of immunity from suit in the tribe's consent to binding arbitration and enforcement of an arbitration award in "any court having jurisdiction thereof." Id. at 419, 121 S.Ct. 1589. The Court rejected the tribes assertion that "Inlo court-federal, state, or even tribal-bald] jurisdiction over C & L's suit ... because [the tribe] has not expressly waived its sovereign immunity in any judicial forum" Id. at 421, 121 S.Ct. 1589. Because the parties chose Oklahoma law, Oklahoma's Uniform Arbitration Act applied which designated enforcement in the "court[s] of competent jurisdiction of [Oklahoma]." Id. at 420, 121 S.Ct. 1589.
{12 In this matter, the parties to the Compact did not choose the applicable law. Instead, they set out the dollar limits of a tribe's liability for a patron's tort claim brought in a court of competent jurisdiction. Therefore, the tribe's limited waiver of immunity from suit, unlike the waiver in C & L, did not completely allocate jurisdiction to the state court. Rather, by not choosing between state law and tribal law, the parties brought patron tort claims under the jurisdiction of state courts and under the jurisdiction of tribal courts.
[ 13 The Compact provides for concurrent jurisdiction in tribal or state court for the adjudication of patron tort claims against the tribal enterprise. Therefore, the patron in this matter was entitled to have his claim adjudicated under the Compact provisions in the forum he chose. The trial court did not err by determining that it had jurisdiction to hear this claim.

. There is no basis for state court jurisdiction over this matter outside the provisions of the Compact. Oklahoma is not a Public Law 280 state and the tribe has not consented to civil regulatory jurisdiction pursuant to 25 U.S.C. 1322.
The patron in this matter has cited cases which, he asserts, prohibit the tribal courts from exercising jurisdiction over a nonmember pa*468tron. Patron is addressing the wrong question. The question is not whether the tribal court may exercise legislative or civil adjudicatory jurisdiction over a casino patron, whose passive role in this matter is alleged to be that of a tort victim. The cited cases are inapplicable because they concern a tribe's or a tribal court's authority over non-Indians. See Nevada v. Hicks, 533 U.S. 353, 121 S.Ct 2304, 150 L.Ed.2d 398 (2001)(tribes lack regulatory or civil adjudicatory jurisdiction over state officials searching tribal member's on-reservation property for evidence of alleged off-reservation violation of state law); Strate v. A-1 Contractors, 520 U.S. 438, 117 S.Ct. 1404, 137 L.Ed.2d 661 (1997)(tribe may not exercise civil adjudicatory jurisdiction over civil case between two non-Indians arising from on-reservation automobile accident); Montana v. United States, 450 U.S. 544, 101 S.Ct. 1245, 67 L.Ed.2d 493 (1981){concerned the authority of tribe to regulate hunting and fishing by nonmembers of tribe on non-Indian owned lands within a reservation). The question in this matter is whether the state district court has acquired civil adjudicatory authority over the conduct of the tribal enterprise by virtue of the provisions of the con-gressionally authorized gaming Compact which the parties negotiated.