Pistor v. Garcia, No. 12-17095 (9th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CasePlaintiffs, applying advantage gambling techniques, won a significant amount of money on video blackjack machines at a casino owned and operated by the Tonto Apache Tribe on tribal land. Plaintiffs filed suit against the tribal defendants, seeking damages under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for violations of their Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, and under state tort law for battery, false imprisonment, conversion, defamation, trespass to chattels, and negligence. The district court denied defendants' motion to dismiss. At issue was whether tribal officers may assert tribal sovereign immunity when sued in their individual capacities for an assertedly unconstitutional detention and seizure of property. The court concluded that sovereign immunity is a quasi-jurisdictional issue that, if invoked at the Rule 12(b)(1) stage, must be addressed and decided; the district court erred in concluding that it could deny the tribal defendants’ Rule 12(b)(1) motion even if they were entitled to tribal sovereign immunity; the tribal defendants are not entitled to tribal sovereign immunity, however, because they are being sued in their individual capacities, rather than in their official capacities, for actions taken in the course of their official duties; and whether the tribal defendants were acting under state or tribal law does not matter for purposes of this analysis, although it will matter for purposes of deciding whether plaintiffs can succeed in their section 1983 claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Civil Rights. The panel affirmed the district court’s denial of a motion to dismiss an action brought against tribal officers who were sued in their individual capacities for an assertedly unconstitutional detention and seizure of property that took place at a casino owned and operated by a tribe on tribal land. The district court held that even if the tribal defendants were entitled to tribal immunity, it was inappropriate to dismiss the claims against the defendants for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court went on to hold, however, that if the tribal defendants’ Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss was construed as a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, the court would conclude that plaintiffs had sufficiently stated a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim against the tribal defendants in their individual capacities. The district court therefore denied defendants’ motion to dismiss the action. PISTOR V. GARCIA 3 The panel held that sovereign immunity is a quasi-jurisdictional issue that, if invoked at the Rule 12(b)(1) stage, must be addressed and decided. Accordingly, the panel held that the district court erred in concluding that it would be inappropriate to dismiss the claims against the defendants at the 12(b)(1) stage. The panel nevertheless affirmed the district court’s denial of defendants’ motion to dismiss the action. The panel held that the tribal defendants were not entitled to tribal sovereign immunity because they were sued in their individual rather than their official capacities, as any recovery will run against the individual tribal defendants, rather than the tribe. The panel held that it did not have jurisdiction to decide whether plaintiffs successfully stated a claim against the defendants under § 1983. The panel held that whether the tribal defendants were acting under state or tribal law did not matter for purposes of the tribal sovereign immunity analysis, although it will matter for purposes of deciding whether plaintiffs can succeed in their § 1983 claim.
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