Doctrine
sovereign immunity
Courts treat Native nations as immune from most lawsuits unless Congress clearly ends that protection or the nation waives it.
- Definition
- Tribes' immunity from suit, subject to congressional abrogation or tribal waiver.
What happened
Sovereign immunity means a government cannot be sued without its consent. The Supreme Court has applied that idea to Native nations for decades, and has said Congress, not the courts, should decide whether to narrow it.
In Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez (1978), a woman and her daughter sued the Pueblo over a membership rule, citing the Indian Civil Rights Act. The Court held that suits against the tribe under that law were barred by the tribe's sovereign immunity, because nothing in the Act subjected tribes to such lawsuits in federal court.
Kiowa Tribe v. Manufacturing Technologies (1998) extended the rule to contracts. The Court wrote that tribes are immune from suits on contracts, whether governmental or commercial, and whether made on or off a reservation. It left any change to Congress.
In Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community (decided May 27, 2014), Michigan tried to stop a casino the Community opened on land it had bought, which Michigan said was outside Indian lands. The Court held the suit was barred by tribal sovereign immunity. It declined to overrule Kiowa. It also pointed to other tools a state has, such as suing the responsible tribal officials rather than the tribe, or bargaining for a waiver in a gaming compact. The rule stands today as stated in those decisions: immunity applies unless Congress has clearly authorized the suit or the tribe has waived it.
Summarized with AI assistance from 4 sources and checked against their words; not yet reviewed by historians or by the nations. Report an error
What the sources say, and how this was checked
Well supported by the sources below.
Indian tribes have long been recognized as possessing the common-law immunity from suit traditionally enjoyed by sovereign powers.
Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49 (1978)Suits against the tribe under the ICRA are barred by the tribe's sovereign immunity from suit
Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez, 436 U.S. 49 (1978)Tribes enjoy immunity from suits on contracts, whether those contracts involve governmental or commercial activities and whether they were made on or off a reservation.
Kiowa Tribe v. Manufacturing Technologies, 523 U.S. 751 (1998)Held : Michigan’s suit against Bay Mills is barred by tribal sovereign immunity.
Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community (2014)
Research notes. This record covers three Supreme Court decisions; it does not survey lower-court or state-court rulings or later congressional statutes that waive immunity in specific settings.
Who is doing the work
Native legal and land defense, nationally
- Native American Rights Fund (NARF) Native-led Litigation and legal advocacy for tribal sovereignty, treaty rights, land and resources Give on their site Website
- NDN Collective (LANDBACK Campaign) Native-led LANDBACK campaign (launched 2020; Mount Rushmore closure and return of Black Hills public lands), Indigenous… Give on their site Website
- Indian Land Tenure Foundation (ILTF) Native-led Land recovery and control by tribes and individual Indian landowners Website
- Decolonizing Wealth Project (Indigenous Earth Fund; California Tribal Land Return) Native-led Reparative philanthropy Give on their site Website
Gifts go straight to each organization; this atlas takes nothing. Listing is not endorsement: how organizations are listed.
Connections
Applied in 5
Sources
No source is linked to this record yet. That is a gap we are working to close.
- Kind
- Doctrine
- Confidence
- Medium