Court Opinion

ID: 9529906
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:55:21.035791+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:57.115254
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, Justice,
dissenting, with whom Vice Chief Justice KAUGER joins.
I dissent because the majority opinion contravenes the mainstream of contemporary sovereign immunity jurisprudence. It is certainly contrary to Sac & Fox Nation v. Hanson, 47 F.3d 1061, 1065 (10th Cir.1995). In a case arising out of Oklahoma the Tenth Circuit held there that unless expressly waived, a tribe is immune from suit in state court. I would overrule this Court’s recent holdings in Hoover v. Kiowa Tribe, 909 P.2d 59 (Okla.1995), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 1675, 134 L.Ed.2d 779 (1996) and First Nat’l Bank v. Kiowa, Comanche and Apache Intertribal Land Use Committee, 913 P.2d 299 (Okla.1996), and follow the reasoning of Hanson.
The majority of jurisdictions (including all the federal ones) which have been faced with *363this question have held that regardless of whether the business activities occur in or out of Indian Country, tribal sovereign immunity remains in place unless expressly waived by the tribe. See, e.g., Sac & Fox Nation v. Hanson, supra; In re Greene, 980 F.2d 590 (9th Cir.1992); Federico v. Capital Gaming Int’l Inc., 888 F.Supp. 354 (D.R.I.1995); Elliott v. Capital Intern. Bank & Trust, Ltd., 870 F.Supp. 733 (E.D.Texas 1994); North Sea Products Ltd. v. Clipper Seafoods, Co., 92 Wash.2d 236, 595 P.2d 938 (1979).
The Hoover decision has been criticized as “extremely broad, and allows too much room for judicial interpretation to serve as a fair and effective legal standard.” Lake, The Unlimited Sovereign Immunity of Indian Tribal Businesses Operating Outside the Reservation: An Idea Whose Time Has Gone, 1996 Col.Bus.L.Rev 87 (1996). If the Hoover result were based on the desire to make business dealings with tribes more fair and equitable, such a remedy should and could be fashioned by the United States Congress, not this Court. As of yet, Congress has not seen fit to limit the doctrine of sovereign immunity to within-Indian Country activities. The doctrine thus remains in place unless expressly waived by the tribe. And for those tribes wishing to do business with others, and for those others wishing to do business with tribes, an express waiver of immunity can be easily inserted into the agreement.
The majority opinion infers that because certiorari was denied in Hoover, supra, and Lewis v. Sac & Fox Tribe, 896 P.2d 503 (Okla.1994), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 116 S.Ct. 476, 133 L.Ed.2d 405 (1995), the law of those cases has somehow been elevated. However, the Supreme Court has held “denial of writ of certiorari imports no expression of opinion upon the merits of the case.” Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 296, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 1067, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989). Denial of certiorari in Hoover and Lewis does not lead to the conclusion that the United States Supreme Court agrees with or supports those decisions.
Not only did the tribe here fail to waive its sovereign immunity, it expressly reserved it, with this language on the face of the guaranty:
“Nothing in this Guaranty subjects or limits the sovereign rights of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma.”
It is regrettable that this Court chips away at the long established sovereignty of the tribes. Absent an express waiver I would recognize their traditional sovereign immunity as in place to bar this suit.