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Navajo Nation challenges lawsuit over death of casino patron


Filed Under: Compacts | Litigation
More on: immunity, jurisdiction, navajo, new mexico
   

The Fire Rock Navajo Casino in New Mexico. Photo from Facebook

The Navajo Nation is asking a federal judge to block a wrongful death lawsuit involving a casino patron.

Lara Sanders, a tribal member, was killed on February 8, 2011, as she was walking home from the Fire Rock Casino. A lawsuit that was filed in New Mexico state court accuses the tribe of negligence by failing to install "adequate traffic and pedestrian facilities" for visitors.

Sanders's estate invoked a provision in the tribe's Class III gaming compact that appears to subject the Navajo Nation to the jurisdiction of the state court system. But a federal judge, in an unrelated case involving another tribe, ruled that the provision only applies to the regulation of gaming activities and not to civil and criminal disputes that arise under state law.

"Absent congressional legislation to the contrary, state courts may not exercise jurisdiction over suits against Indian tribes, tribal members or tribal entities arising from alleged wrongs committed within Indian country; nor may a tribe, whether unilaterally or by agreement with a state, validly agree to any such shift in jurisdiction," the Navajo Nation and the Navajo Nation Gaming Enterprise said in a motion for a temporary restraining order

New Mexico Judge Robert A. Aragon is due to start a trial on November 3. The tribe's motion seeks to prevent him from opening the proceedings.

Turtle Talk has posted documents from the case, Navajo Nation v. Aragon.

Get the Story:
Navajo Tell State Judge to Butt Out (Courthouse News Service 10/23)

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