Court Opinion

ID: 9482002
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:37:22.683582+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:42.266845
License: Public Domain

FERNANDEZ, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I will not extend the reports by writing at length. Most simply put, I think that *668the district court was correct. See Stock West Corp. v. Taylor, 737 F.Supp. 601 (D.Ore.1990).
The majority’s dual holding is that this is not a case for deferral to tribal court jurisdiction, nor is it a clear case of tribal officer immunity1. The result is that Stock West is allowed to open an entirely new front in its dispute with the tribe. It is allowed to sue a tribal officer in district court. However, Stock West’s action is based upon the flimsiest of complaints about that officer’s behavior toward itself.2
Surely that does undermine the tribe’s ability to conduct its own affairs and to adjudicate its own disputes. Ultimately, as we recognize in so many other areas, governments are run by people. When we allow an attack upon those people individually we attack the operation of the government itself.3 What we are doing here is allowing Stock West to drag its dispute with the tribe through the back door of the federal courthouse. The parties know that, the tribe knows it, the district judge knows it, we know it. So does the law. Therefore, I respectfully dissent.

.The majority questions whether Taylor’s actions were part of his duties for the tribe, even though he was the senior attorney for the Office of the Reservation Attorney and was busily putting together contracts for the development of tribal resources. The majority seems to express doubt about whether the tribal statutes really cover Taylor’s activities and confer immunity upon him. Of course, that doubt is still another reason to defer to the tribal courts, where the construction of tribal law and determination of Taylor’s true position with the tribe can be decided by those who should have the most expertise on the subject.

. As the majority states, Taylor had thought that BIA approval of the contracts in suit here was required, but the BIA said that no approval was needed or desirable. Stock West knew that. Thereafter, Taylor, with specific citation to the BIA response, opined to someone else that approval was not required. As it turned out, his first (and perhaps continuing personal) opinion was correct. Approval really was required.

. There are many times when that is necessary and proper. This is not one of them.