State court can hear suit over death on reservation

Date: July 24, 2000
By Barbara L. Jones

A non-Indian may sue an Indian in state court for a wrongful death that occurred on a reservation, the Court of Appeals has ruled.
The defendant argued that the plaintiff was first required to exhaust tribal court remedies before resorting to state court.

But the Court of Appeals disagreed, affirming a District Court judge’s denial of a defense motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

In so ruling, the Court of Appeals reasoned that the wrongful death statute is a civil law of general applicability and a state court decision in such a case will not infringe on sovereign immunity or matters of tribal self-government.

The eight-page decision is Lemke v. Brooks, Minnesota Lawyer No. CA-759-00. The opinion was written by retired Judge Edward J. Parker, sitting by appointment.

Minneapolis attorney Daniel J. Boivin, who represented the plaintiff, observed: “the decision clarifies Public Law 280 but it doesn’t change it. It makes it clearer there is concurrent jurisdiction. There’s no reason not to be able to go into state court against a tribal member when it doesn’t affect the tribe’s business. Now we can proceed with getting the family the help it needs.”

Paul Banker, attorney for the defendant, said that no decision has been made on whether to petition the Supreme Court for review.

“We thought from the beginning this case belonged in tribal court,” he stated. “There’s a long history of case law that deals with exhaustion of remedies and when you look at that history. It’s clear the case belongs in a tribal court.”

Shooting death

Kinscem Teta and defendant Dean Brooks were the parents of a young child, Alicia.

The case arose out of the shooting death of Teta on Indian land. The defendant pled guilty to second degree murder and has since petitioned for postconviction relief on the basis of mental illness. Brooks is a member of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, a federally recognized Indian tribe.

Plaintiff Wanda Lemke — the mother of Teta and the grandmother of Alicia — sued Brooks in Hennepin County District Court on behalf of Teta’s heirs and next of kin for the wrongful death of Teta.

The defendant moved to dismiss the lawsuit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, contending that the plaintiff was first required to exhaust tribal court remedies. The plaintiff moved to strike the defendant’s affirmative defense of lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

A District Court judge denied the motion to dismiss and granted the plaintiff’s motion to strike.

Jurisdictional question

Judge Parker noted that absent a grant of federal authority, state courts have no jurisdiction over Indians, Indian tribes or other Indian entities. However, Public Law 280, codified at 28 U.S.C. sec. 1360(a), grants Minnesota and five other states broad criminal and limited civil jurisdiction over almost all Indian country within the state, said Parker.

“Public Law 280 provides that Minnesota has ‘jurisdiction over civil causes of action between Indians or to which Indians are parties which arise in the areas of Indian country listed...to the same extent that such State has jurisdiction over other civil causes of action, and those civil laws of such State that are of general application to private persons or private property shall have the same force and effect within such Indian country as they have elsewhere within the state...,’” Parker observed.

Supreme Court precedent

Parker next noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has defined Indian country in civil cases as all land within the limits of any Indian reservation under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Government.

“Minnesota state courts and tribal courts have concurrent jurisdiction over some causes of action arising in Indian Country,” Parker stated. “It is undisputed that [the defendant], an Indian, shot decedent, a non-Indian, in Indian country,” the court observed.

The defendant argued that the state court should have relied on the exhaustion doctrine, as applied in federal and tribal courts, which generally provides that the tribal court should decide jurisdiction in the first instance. Only after the tribal court has, if it accepts jurisdiction, decided the merits and conducted an appeal, may the federal court conduct a limited review of jurisdiction.

However, said Parker, “different considerations arise when considering the issue as applied to state and tribal courts. Unlike federal courts, state courts do not have jurisdiction to conduct even limited review of tribal court decisions. Further, the exhaustion requirement concerns comity rather than subject-matter jurisdiction.”

Deference is the guiding principle in determining whether a state court should assume concurrent jurisdiction, Parker observed. Abstention by a state court is appropriate when the exercise of state court jurisdiction would undermine the authority of the tribal courts or infringe on the right of Indians to govern themselves, the judge continued.

Since the plaintiff did not seek damages against a tribe, tribal official, or tribal business, or implicate the sovereign immunity of the tribe, the state court is not required to defer to the tribal court, said Parker.

The Court of Appeals also noted that under Public Law 280, state civil laws of “general application to private persons” have the same force and effect in and out of Indian country.

In Bryan v. Itasca County, 1976, the U.S. Supreme Court defined civil laws of general application as areas such as contracts, tort, marriage, insanity, descent, etc., but not including the state’s sovereign powers, Parker observed.

“[T]he wrongful death statute is not a regulatory law, but a civil law of general application to private persons, which has the same effect and application on the reservation as elsewhere,” Parker wrote.

Therefore, the Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court judge properly denied the motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

Originally appeared in Minnesota Lawyer.