Court Opinion

ID: 9544474
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 16:55:51.609438+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:13:03.506320
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE HASWELL
(specially concurring) :
I concur in the result, but in my view the rationale of the majority opinion is flawed. In my opinion this will lead to no end of difficulties in future Indian jurisdictional cases that may come before this Court.
The majority opinion is predicated on the jurisdictional test set forth in Williams v. Lee, 358 U.S. 217, 79 S.Ct. 269, 3 L.Ed.2d 251, i. e. whether state action infringes on the right of reservation Indians to make their own laws and be ruled by them. The Williams test was subsequently applied in Organized Village of Kake v. Egan, 369 U.S. 60, 82 S.Ct. 562, 7 L.Ed.2d 573. In one *347of the latest cases discussing the Williams test, the U.S. Supreme Court pointed out that this test was useful in situations involving the rights of Indians and non-Indians where both the Tribe and the state could fairly claim jurisdiction. McClanahan v. Arizona State Tax Commission, ......U.S. ......, 93 S.Ct. 1257, 36 L.Ed.2d 129, decided March 27, 1973.
In McClanahan the court said:
“It must be remembered that cases applying the Williams test have dealt principally with situations involving non-Indians. See also Organized Village of Kake v. Egan, 369 U.S. 60, 75-76, 82 S.Ct. 562, 570-571, 7 L.Ed.2d 573 (1962). In these situations, both the Tribe and the State could fairly claim an interest in asserting their respective jurisdictions. The Williams test was designed to resolve this conflict by providing that the State could protect its interest up to the point where tribal self-government would be affected.”
In the instant case, the situation is entirely different. This case involves the respective rights of two reservation Indians in a divorce oase in a mutually acceptable forum with no assertion of antagonistic jurisdictional interests between the tribe, the state, the two Indians, or the federal government. The Williams test simply has no application to this situation and its continued indiscriminate application to all Indian jurisdictional questions in this Court is a mistake. Continued adherence to the Williams test has previously resulted in reversals in the judgments of this Court. See Kennerly v. District Court, 400 U.S. 423, 91 S.Ct. 480, 27 L.Ed.2d 507.
The controlling consideration in this ease, in my opinion, is whether the federal government has preempted the field of divorce leaving the tribal government powerless in this area. See, McClanahan, pages 1297- 1299 for rationale. Having been cited no relevant treaties or statutes of preemption and have found none, I conclude that residual power and jurisdiction in divorce cases remains in the tribe which ceded such residual jurisdiction to state courts in 1938. For Montana to deny two reservation *348Indians tbe use of its state courts in a divorce case under such circumstances would amount to a denial of equal protection of tbe laws to our Indian citizens.
I concur in tbe result of tbe majority on tbe foregoing basis.