Office of the Chief · Nation Law Library
Sovereign Immunity
A starter brief on the doctrine of Tribal sovereign immunity — its constitutional and federal-common-law grounding, its scope, its recognized limits, and how the KiKiallus Nation asserts and waives immunity through the Allied Court.
Filed with the Bureau of Recordation · Public preview open · Full brief for Nation citizens and pass-holders
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Summary
Tribal sovereign immunity is a longstanding doctrine of federal Indian law under which Indian tribes, as domestic dependent sovereigns, are generally immune from suit absent congressional abrogation or a clear and unequivocal waiver by the tribe itself. The Supreme Court has repeatedly reaffirmed the doctrine in cases including Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez (1978), Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma v. Manufacturing Technologies (1998), Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community (2014), and Upper Skagit Indian Tribe v. Lundgren (2018).
The full brief covers: (i) the federal-common-law foundation for tribal sovereign immunity; (ii) congressional abrogation under statutes such as the Indian Civil Rights Act; (iii) the tribe's ability to expressly waive immunity, including through arbitration and choice-of-forum clauses; (iv) the scope of immunity as it extends to tribal officials, tribal enterprises, and tribal corporate arms; (v) exceptions recognized in Ex parte Young-style suits against officers; and (vi) the KiKiallus Nation's own protocol for asserting or waiving immunity through the Allied Court and the Attorney General.
Full brief
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Includes case-by-case treatment of the Supreme Court's tribal-immunity line, waiver drafting language, an Attorney General decision matrix, and templates for asserting immunity in state and federal court.
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