Court Opinion

ID: 9688401
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 17:45:44.991436+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:38.213795
License: Public Domain

VANDE WALLE,
Justice, concurring in result.
I concur in the result but only on the narrow ground that the orders and filings *402of March 13, 1986, in tribal court should be recognized as prior in time to the divorce action instituted in district court on March 14,1986. Because they were first in time I believe the district court should have deferred to the proceedings in the tribal court. I do not believe it is necessary to conclude, as does the majority opinion, that “If a jurisdictional holding results in denying a non-Indian plaintiff a state court forum in an action against an Indian which arises on the reservation and is therefore within the tribal court’s exclusive jurisdiction, ‘such disparate treatment of the Indian is justified because it is intended to benefit the class of which he is a member by furthering the congressional policy of Indian self-government.’ ” I would leave to another day the issue of the application of that statement to this type of proceeding.
GIERKE, J., concurs.