Upper Skagit Indian Tribe v. Lundgren

Docket No.	Op. Below	Argument	Opinion	Vote	Author	Term
17-387	Wash.	Mar 21, 2018 Tr.Aud.	May 21, 2018	7-2	Gorsuch	OT 2017

Holding: County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation, 502 U. S. 251, addressed only a question of statutory interpretation of the Indian General Allotment Act of 1887, not the question whether Indian tribes have sovereign immunity in in rem lawsuits. The Lundgrens now ask the Supreme Court to affirm on an alternative, common-law ground: that the tribe cannot assert sovereign immunity because this suit relates to immovable property located in Washington state, purchased by the tribe in the same manner as a private individual. Because this alternative argument did not emerge until late in this case, the Washington Supreme Court should address it in the first instance.

Judgment: Vacated and remanded, 7-2, in an opinion by Justice Gorsuch on May 21, 2018. Chief Justice Roberts filed a concurring opinion, in which Justice Kennedy joined. Justice Thomas filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Alito joined.

SCOTUSblog Coverage

OT2017 #26: "The Murder Zone" (First Mondays)
Opinion analysis: Justices reject state-court justification for limiting tribal immunity from state-court actions to adjudicate title to land (Ronald Mann)
A "view" from the courtroom: Strength in numbers (Corrected) (Mark Walsh)
Argument analysis: Justices dubious about tribal immunity from state-court actions to adjudicate title to land, but hesitant to embrace new theory (Ronald Mann)
A "view" from the courtroom: Just another (snowy) workday here (Mark Walsh)
Argument preview: Justices to consider tribal immunity from state-court actions to adjudicate title to land (Ronald Mann)
Justices release March calendar (Amy Howe)
Court adds seven new cases to merits docket (Amy Howe)
Petition of the day (Aurora Barnes)

Date	Proceedings and Orders (key to color coding)
Sep 11 2017	Petition for a writ of certiorari filed. (Response due October 13, 2017)
Oct 13 2017	Brief of respondents Sharline Lundgren and Ray Lundgren in opposition filed.
Oct 27 2017	Reply of petitioner Upper Skagit Indian Tribe filed.
Nov 01 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 11/21/2017.
Nov 17 2017	Rescheduled.
Nov 27 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 12/1/2017.
Dec 04 2017	DISTRIBUTED for Conference of 12/8/2017.
Dec 08 2017	Petition GRANTED.
Jan 22 2018	Brief of petitioner Upper Skagit Indian Tribe filed.
Jan 22 2018	Joint appendix filed. (Statement of costs filed.)
Jan 24 2018	SET FOR ARGUMENT ON Wednesday, March 21, 2018
Jan 29 2018	Brief amici curiae of Cayuga Nation, Seneca Nation of Indians, Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, Cherokee Nation, Pueblo of Pojoaque filed.
Jan 29 2018	Brief amici curiae of Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Puyallup Tribe of Indians, and Skokomish Indian Tribe filed.
Jan 29 2018	Brief amicus curiae of United States filed.
Jan 29 2018	Brief amici curiae of States of Illinois, Indiana, New Mexico, and Texas filed in Support of Neither Party
Jan 29 2018	Brief amici curiae of National Congress of American Indians, et al. filed.
Feb 07 2018	CIRCULATED
Feb 21 2018	Record requested from the Supreme Court of Washington.
Feb 21 2018	Brief of respondents Sharline Lundgren and Ray Lundgren filed. (Distributed)
Feb 28 2018	Motion of the Solicitor General for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument filed.
Feb 28 2018	Brief amicus curiae of Public Service Company of New Mexico filed. (Distributed)
Feb 28 2018	Brief amici curiae of Village of Union Springs, Town of Springport, Cayuga County filed. (Distributed)
Feb 28 2018	Brief amicus curiae of Seneca County, New York filed. (Distributed)
Mar 12 2018	Reply of petitioner Upper Skagit Indian Tribe filed. (Distributed)
Mar 16 2018	Motion of the Solicitor General for leave to participate in oral argument as amicus curiae and for divided argument GRANTED.
Mar 21 2018	Argued. For petitioner: David S. Hawkins, Sedro-Woolley, Wash.; and Ann O’Connell, Assistant to the Solicitor General, Department of Justice, Washington, D. C. (for United States, as amicus curiae.) For respondents: Eric D. Miller, Seattle, Wash.
May 21 2018	Judgment VACATED and case REMANDED. Gorsuch, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Roberts, C. J., filed a concurring opinion, in which Kennedy, J., joined. Thomas, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Alito, J., joined.
Jun 22 2018	MANDATE ISSUED.
Jun 22 2018	JUDGMENT ISSUED.

Featured Posts

Challengers urge justices to dismiss census case after district court ruling (Updated) – Amy Howe

Reargument analysis: Justices seek a “middle position” in takings litigation case – Miriam Seifter

Argument analysis: Justices have strong views about removal of class actions – Ronald Mann
Email Digest Sign-Up
Receive a daily email digest from Feedburner by entering your email.
Merits Case Pages and Archives

Archives

or

This Week at the Court
The Supreme Court will release orders from the January 18 conference on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. There is a possibility of opinions on Tuesday at 10 a.m.
The justices will meet next for their February 15 conference.
The calendar for the February sitting, which will begin on Tuesday, February 19, is available on the Supreme Court's website.
Recent Decisions
- New Prime Inc. v. Oliveira A court should determine whether the Federal Arbitration Act’s Section 1 exclusion for disputes involving the “contracts of employment” of certain transportation workers applies before ordering arbitration; here, truck driver Dominic Oliveira’s independent contractor operating agreement with New Prime Inc. falls within that exception.
- Stokeling v. United States The Armed Career Criminal Act’s elements clause encompasses a robbery offense that, like Florida’s law, requires the criminal to overcome the victim’s resistance.
- Culbertson v. Berryhill The Social Security Act’s fee cap of 25 percent of past-due benefits imposed on attorneys who successfully represent Title II benefit claimants in court proceedings applies only to fees for court representation and not to aggregate fees for both court and agency representation.
- Henry Schein Inc. v. Archer and White Sales Inc. The “wholly groundless” exception to the general rule that courts must enforce contracts that delegate threshold arbitrability questions to an arbitrator, not a court, is inconsistent with the Federal Arbitration Act and Supreme Court precedent.
- City of Escondido, California v. Emmons The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit failed to conduct the analysis required by Supreme Court precedents in determining whether two Escondido police officers were entitled to qualified immunity.
- Shoop v. Hill Because Danny Hill’s intellectual disability claim must be evaluated based solely on holdings of the Supreme Court that were clearly established at the time the state-court decisions were rendered, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit’s reliance on Moore v. Texas -- which was handed down much later -- was plainly improper.
see all this term’s cases »
Current Relists
- Altitude Express Inc. v. Zarda Whether the prohibition in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1), against employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” encompasses discrimination based on an individual’s sexual orientation.
- Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia Whether discrimination against an employee because of sexual orientation constitutes prohibited employment discrimination “because of . . . sex” within the meaning of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2.
- Box v. Planned Parenthood of Indiana and Kentucky Inc. (1) Whether a state may require health-care facilities to dispose of fetal remains in the same manner as other human remains, i.e., by burial or cremation; and (2) whether a state may prohibit abortions motivated solely by the race, sex or disability of the fetus and require abortion doctors to inform patients of the prohibition.
More Petitions »
Major Cases
- Lamone v. Benisek
  In case in which the plaintiffs allege that a Maryland congressional district was gerrymandered to retaliate against them for their political views: (1) whether the various legal claims articulated by the three-judge district court are unmanageable; (2) whether the three-judge district court erred when, in granting plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment, it resolved disputes of material fact as to multiple elements of plaintiffs’ claims, failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, and treated as “undisputed” evidence that is the subject of still-unresolved hearsay and other evidentiary objections; and (3) whether the three-judge district court abused its discretion in entering an injunction despite the plaintiffs’ years-long delay in seeking injunctive relief, rendering the remedy applicable to at most one election before the next decennial census necessitates another redistricting.
- Kisor v. Wilkie
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule Auer v. Robbins and Bowles v. Seminole Rock & Sand Co., which direct courts to defer to an agency’s reasonable interpretation of its own ambiguous regulation.
- Department of Commerce v. U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York
  Whether, in an action seeking to set aside agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 701 et seq., a district court may order discovery outside the administrative record to probe the mental processes of the agency decisionmaker—including by compelling the testimony of high-ranking Executive Branch officials—when there is no evidence that the decisionmaker disbelieved the objective reasons in the administrative record, irreversibly prejudged the issue, or acted on a legally forbidden basis.
- Rucho v. Common Cause
  (1) Whether plaintiffs have standing to press their partisan gerrymandering claims; (2) whether plaintiffs’ partisan gerrymandering claims are justiciable; and (3) whether North Carolina’s 2016 congressional map is, in fact, an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.
- The American Legion v. American Humanist Association
  (1) Whether a 93-year-old memorial to the fallen of World War I is unconstitutional merely because it is shaped like a cross; (2) whether the constitutionality of a passive display incorporating religious symbolism should be assessed under the tests articulated in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Van Orden v. Perry, Town of Greece v. Galloway or some other test; and (3) whether, if the test from Lemon v. Kurtzman applies, the expenditure of funds for the routine upkeep and maintenance of a cross-shaped war memorial, without more, amounts to an excessive entanglement with religion in violation of the First Amendment.
- Gamble v. United States
  Whether the Supreme Court should overrule the “separate sovereigns” exception to the double jeopardy clause.
see all this term’s cases »
Recent Special Features
Statistical Snapshot

Cases argued 43

Cases decided 9

Summary reversals 2

Merits cases granted to date 73

see all »
Live Blog Archives
See all
Twitter Feed

Tweets by @SCOTUSblog

Full Calendar Submit Event

Jan. 2019

Su	Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa
		1 Holiday	2	3	4 Conference	5
6	7 Orders MERCK SHARP & DOHME CORP. V. ALBRECHT (17-290) OBDUSKEY V. MCCARTHY & HOLTHUS LLP (17-1307)	8 HERRERA V. WYOMING (17-532) FOURTH ESTATE PUBLIC BENEFIT CORP. V. WALL-STREET.COM, LLC (17-571) Opinions	9 FRANCHISE TAX BOARD OF CALIFORNIA V. HYATT (17-1299)	10	11 Conference	12
13	14 Orders THACKER V. TENNESSEE VALLEY AUTHORITY (17-1201) RIMINI STREET INC. V. ORACLE USA INC. (17-1625)	15 HOME DEPOT U.S.A. INC. V. JACKSON (17-1471) AZAR V. ALLINA HEALTH SERVICES (17-1484) Opinions	16 KNICK V. TOWNSHIP OF SCOTT, PENNSYLVANIA (17-647) TENNESSEE WINE AND SPIRITS RETAILERS ASSOCIATION V. BLAIR (18-96)	17	18 Conference	19
20	21 Holiday	22 Orders Opinions	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31

Orders/Opinions
Arguments
Conferences

Events
Holidays
Multiple

Download our App in the Apple Store
First Mondays see all
Videos see all

Justice Sotomayor at Harvard

On November 13, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Judge Jennifer Walker Elrod of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and Judge Susan Carney of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit presided over the final round of the 2018 Ames Moot Court Competition at Harvard Law School.

Peabody Award
Awarded the Peabody Award for excellence in electronic media.
Sigma Delta Chi
Awarded the Sigma Delta Chi deadline reporting award for online coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
National Press Club Award
Awarded the National Press Club's Breaking News Award for coverage of the Affordable Care Act decision.
Silver Gavel Award
Awarded the Silver Gavel Award by the American Bar Association for fostering the American public’s understanding of the law and the legal system.
American Gavel Award
Awarded the American Gavel Award for Distinguished Reporting About the Judiciary to recognize the highest standards of reporting about courts and the justice system.
Webby Award
Awarded the Webby Award for excellence on the internet.

Cases argued	43
Cases decided	9
Summary reversals	2
Merits cases granted to date	73

Editor's Note :

Upper Skagit Indian Tribe v. Lundgren

SCOTUSblog Coverage

Featured Posts

Challengers urge justices to dismiss census case after district court ruling (Updated) – Amy Howe

Reargument analysis: Justices seek a “middle position” in takings litigation case – Miriam Seifter

Argument analysis: Justices have strong views about removal of class actions – Ronald Mann

Email Digest Sign-Up

Merits Case Pages and Archives

Recent Decisions

Current Relists

Conference of January 18, 2019

Major Cases

Recent Special Features

Live Blog Archives

Jan. 2019

Download our App in the Apple Store

First Mondays see all

Videos see all

Peabody Award

Sigma Delta Chi

National Press Club Award

Silver Gavel Award

American Gavel Award

Webby Award