Alvarado v. Table Mountain Rancheria

509 F.3d 1008, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 27527, 2007 WL 4198261
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedNovember 29, 2007
Docket06-15351
StatusPublished
Cited by80 cases

This text of 509 F.3d 1008 (Alvarado v. Table Mountain Rancheria) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Alvarado v. Table Mountain Rancheria, 509 F.3d 1008, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 27527, 2007 WL 4198261 (9th Cir. 2007).

Opinion

ALARCÓN, Circuit Judge:

Appellants appeal from the district court’s order dismissing their complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Appellants are individuals who unsuccessfully petitioned the Table Mountain Tribal Council for admission to the Table Mountain Ranchería, an Indian tribe. Their complaint sought an order compelling the Table Mountain Ranchería to admit them as members. The district court concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction over Appellants’ claims because this case was indistinguishable from those in which tribal immunity precludes federal court jurisdiction over tribal membership disputes. In so holding, the district court rejected Appellants’ attempts to establish subject matter jurisdiction.

Appellants contend that this case is distinguishable from those in which tribal immunity precludes jurisdiction. They claim that immunity does not apply because their claims do not involve tribal membership disputes. Instead, they purport to assert a collateral attack on the judgment in Table Mountain Ranchería Association et al. v. Jamies Watt, Secretary of the Interior, No. C-80-4595-MHP. Also, they argue that the district court had subject matter jurisdiction by virtue of its ancillary authority to enforce the Watt settlement agreement, and that the tribal Appel-lees’ immunity is waived because of their participation in Watt. In passing, Appellants assert that the district court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1346.

We have appellate jurisdiction over this timely appeal from the district court’s final judgment pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and affirm the judgment of dismissal. The district court properly concluded that it lacked subject matter jurisdiction to order Appellees to admit Appellants as members of the Table Mountain Ranchería. We do not reach the issue of whether tribal immunity defeats Appellants’ claims. Appellants’ subject matter arguments suffer from a more fundamental flaw: Appellants have failed to establish that the district court has subject matter jurisdiction over their causes of action even if the Table Mountain Ranchería is not immune from suit.

I

In or around 1916, the United States purchased a parcel of land in Fresno County, California from private individuals, and thereafter held the land in trust for the Table Mountain Band of Indians. The land became known as the Table Mountain Ranchería (“TMR”), and was considered an Indian Reservation and “Indian Country” within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1151. 1 Ranchería residents were *1012 recognized as Indians for purposes of federal law.

On August 18, 1958, Congress enacted the California Ranchería Act, Pub.L. No. 85-671, 72 Stat. 619 (1958). The Ranche-ría Act, inter alia, authorized an exchange of title to Ranchería assets, and a promise that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (“BIA”) would continue to provide essential benefits, such as irrigation and educational programs to Ranchería residents, if, in return, the TMR voluntarily relinquished its trust status, and the TMR’s residents forfeited their Indian status.

A proposed plan for distribution of Ranchería land, drafted pursuant to the Ranchería Act, divided the Ranchería into parcels, most of which were to be conveyed to individual Ranchería residents. The remaining parcels were earmarked for the Ranchería water system, and were to be conveyed to a legal entity formed solely to receive the remaining parcels. Sometime after July 31, 1959, the proposed plan was approved. As a result, the Ranchería assets were distributed to the Table Mountain Ranchería Association (“TMRA”) 2 and individual residents. In addition, the Ranchería lost its trust status, and its residents lost their Indian status.

In 1980, the TMRA, several individuals who had forfeited their Indian status in return for Ranchería assets, along with several dependent members of their families, filed a putative class action, entitled Table Mountain Ranchería Association et al. u James Watt, Secretary of the Interi- or, et al, No. C-80-4595-MHP (“Watt ”), in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The Watt complaint named Clarence Jones, Lester Burrough, E.B. Barnes, Lewis Barnes, and William Walker as plaintiffs, 3 and the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the United States, as defendants.

The named plaintiffs in the Watt action sought to certify two classes:

persons named in the distribution plan as distributees of [TMR] assets ..., or thefir] Indian heir(s), assign(s), executor(s), administrator(s), or successor(s) in interest ... who, by reason of having been named as distributees ... were ... considered by the [federal] government ... to have lost their status as Indians under [federal law];
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all Indian persons, other than distribu-tees, who were named in the [TMR] distribution plan as dependents of dis-tributees, and who, for that reason, were ... deemed by the United States ... to have lost their status as Indians under [federal law].

On April 11, 1983, the district court certified both classes.

The Watt plaintiffs alleged that the defendants failed to inform the Ranchería residents who approved the distribution *1013 plan of “the obligations of the United States under the Rancheria Act, the relative advantages and disadvantages of accepting termination, the options available to them under the Rancheria Act and the legal consequences of exercising those options.” The Watt complaint further alleged that the Watt defendants “eaus[ed] plaintiff dependents to be ineligible to receive federal services provided exclusively to Indians, and to enjoy other federal rights available to Indians, including such rights as having land held in trust for them.” (Emphasis added).

The Watt complaint sought rescission of the distribution plan and a declaration “that the purported termination of the [plaintiffs’] Indian status ... and the trust ... status of the lands of the Table Mountain Rancheria ... is void ... and that plaintiff distributees [and dependents] have been and remain eligible to participate in all federal programs and benefits provided to Indians because of their status as Indians.” (Emphasis added).

On March 28, 1983, the Watt parties stipulated to a settlement and judgment. The stipulation provided that the named plaintiffs

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509 F.3d 1008, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 27527, 2007 WL 4198261, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/alvarado-v-table-mountain-rancheria-ca9-2007.