Court Opinion

ID: 9849171
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:35:40.603737+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:19:04.822785
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, Vice Chief Justice,
dissenting, with whom KAUGER, Chief Justice, joins.
¶ 1 I dissent, first, for the reason that I believe the Court continues to misperceive the status of tribal sovereign immunity in Oklahoma. My views on this subject are found in dissenting opinions reported in the cases of Aircraft Equipment Co. v. Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, 1996 OK 81, 921 P.2d 359, 362-363, (Summers, J., dissenting, joined by Kauger, V.C.J.); Aircraft Equipment Co. v. Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, 1997 OK 59, 939 P.2d 1143, 1149-1150, (Summers, J., dissenting, joined by Kauger, C.J.). See also First Nat. Bank in Altus v. Kiowa, Comanche and, Apache Intertribal Land Use Committee, 1996 OK 34, 913 P.2d 299, 301-302, (Kauger, V.C.J., dissenting, joined by Summers, J.).
¶2 But even should the majority of the Court turn out to be correct, the Court would be wise to use restraint, and defer its decision until the U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. The very issue, with the very same tribe, is presently before that court. Oral arguments were heard on January 12, 1998, in Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma v. Manufacturing Technologies, Inc., U.S.S.Ct. No. 96-1037. According to the brief filed in that case by the United States Solicitor General, the issue presented is whether the sovereign immunity from suit accorded Indian Tribes, as a matter of federal law, bars an action brought in state court to recover money damages for a breach of contract arising out of commercial activity undertaken by a Tribe outside Indian Country. U.S. Amicus Brief, 1997 WL 523859, August 25,1997. That was the issue involving the same Tribe in Hoover v. Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, 1995 OK 136, 909 P.2d 59, cert. denied, 517 U.S. 1188, 116 S.Ct. 1675, 134 L.Ed.2d 779 (1996), (Hoover I), as well as in today’s case.
¶3 The correctness or incorrectness of our former decision is about to be ruled upon by the United States Supreme Court. If we wait a few weeks to decide this ease and the High Court confirms this Court’s view of the law in Hoover I, the parties will have suffered no great injury by the delay in this already protracted litigation. On the other hand, if we don’t wait upon the High Court’s decision, and it later repudiates this Court’s view of the law, an unnecessary burden will be placed on a party in this case.
¶ 4 It is certainly true that a party may seek certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court based upon conflicting recent decisions of our Court and the U.S. Supreme Court, and that Court may grant certiorari and remand in light of its recent decision. See e.g., National Private Truck Council, Inc. v. Oklahoma Tax Com’n, 501 U.S. 1247, 111 S.Ct. 2882, 115 L.Ed.2d 1048 (1991); Williams v. Phillips, 442 U.S. 926, 99 S.Ct. 2853, 61 L.Ed.2d 294 (1979). But I see no need to put these litigants through yet another appeal in another court. This Court’s contribution to the body of the law by its opinion today is not necessary for the litigants nor the law, because of the impending birth of the High Court’s opinion on the same subject.
¶ 5 In Aircraft Equipment Co. v. Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma, 1996 OK 81, 921 P.2d 359, 362-363, (Summers, J., dissenting, joined by Kauger, V.C.J.), I expressed the view, supported by authority, that the Tribe was immune from suit in state court unless that immunity had been removed by Congress or waived by the Tribe. I will not repeat that authority here. Congress has not changed the Tribe’s immunity, although some members of the Senate talked about it in the last session. Our Court, however, has come to the conclusion that the Tribe has no immunity from suit in state court when the suit is based upon activity occurring outside Indian Country. The Court’s historical analysis throws down a gauntlet challenging the long established concepts that (1) Public Law 280 is relevant to state-tribal relations in Oklahoma, and (2) tribes possess immunity from suit in Oklahoma state courts unless waived. Before making such a pronouncement I would await clarification from that Court which has the authority to review our decision in this matter and is in the process *107of preparing its opinion to resolve the question.