Cahto Tribe v. Dutschke, No. 11-17847 (9th Cir. 2013)
Annotate this CaseThe Tribe sought to set aside a decision of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) directing the Tribe to place the names of certain disenrolled individuals back on its membership roll. The BIA issued its decision pursuant to regulations providing for administrative review of adverse tribal enrollment actions where, as the BIA believed in this case, a tribe had authorized such review. The court concluded that the Tribe's governing documents did not grant the authority to the BIA to review appeals from disenrollment. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment.
Court Description: Tribal Law. The panel reversed the district court’s judgment affirming the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs’ decision in favor of federal defendants in an action brought by the Cahto Tribe of the Laytonville Rancheria, seeking to set aside the Bureau of Indian Affairs’ decision to direct the Tribe to place the names of certain disenrolled individuals back on its membership rolls. The panel held that the Tribe’s governing documents did not provide for an appeal to the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the Tribe’s disenrollment action.
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