Luckerman v. Narragansett Indian Tribe, No. 14-1106 (1st Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff, an attorney, filed a lawsuit against the Narragansett Indian Tribe alleging breach of contract. Plaintiff alleged that the Tribe contractually waived the sovereign immunity that would otherwise have prevented him from bringing this suit outside the tribal courts. The district court denied the Tribe’s motion to dismiss the case on sovereign immunity grounds. The Tribe did not appeal the denial of the motion to dismiss. Instead, the Tribe filed an untimely Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e) motion for reconsideration. The district court denied the Rule 59(e) motion. The Tribe subsequently filed a notice purporting to appeal from both the denial of the motion to dismiss and the denial of the untimely Rule 59(e) motion. A prior duty panel of the First Circuit dismissed as untimely any appeal from the denial of the motion to dismiss. The First Circuit subsequently denied interlocutory review of the order denying its motion to reconsider, holding that it lacked jurisdiction to entertain such an appeal because the denial of the Tribe’s untimely 59(e) motion did not qualify as a collateral order that the Court may review prior to the end of the litigation in the district court.
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