Commissioner of Taxation v. Brun

• Decision Date: 23 January 1970
• Docket Number: No. 41410,41410
• Citation: 174 N.W.2d 120,286 Minn. 43
• Parties: COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION, Respondent, v. Francis N. BRUN and Barbara A. Brun, Relators.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 120

174 N.W.2d 120

286 Minn. 43

COMMISSIONER OF TAXATION, Respondent, v. Francis N. BRUN and Barbara A. Brun, Relators.

No. 41410.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Jan. 23, 1970.

Syllabus by the Court

Due to the unique status of enrolled members of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians living on the Red Lake Reservation, the State of Minnesota lacks power to impose a state income tax on the earnings of such Indians which are the result of employment on the reservation.

Hoag, Edwards, Edgerton, Theobald & Rieschl, Duluth, for relators.

Douglas M. Head, Atty. Gen., Richard H. Kyle, Sol. Gen., Don G. Paterick and Gerald T. Laurie, Spec. Asst. Attys. Gen., St. Paul, for respondent.

OPINION

KNUTSON, Chief Justice.

Certiorari to review a decision of the Minnesota Tax Court involving the right to collect a state income tax from members of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians.

The facts have either been stipulated by the parties or are not in dispute. Both Francis N. Brun and Barbara A. Brun are enrolled members of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians and live on the Red Lake Reservation. Francis Brun was employed by the tribal sawmill located on the reservation and owned and operated as a Red Lake Band tribal enterprise. Barbara Brun was employed on the Red Lake Reservation as a clerk for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, United States Department of the Interior. Francis earned $5,511.20 as an accounting clerk in the year 1964. Of this, $94 was withheld for Minnesota income tax. Barbara earned $4,460.80 as a clerk in 1965, of which $101.30 was withheld by the State of Minnesota for income tax. Federal income taxes were also withheld from the income of each individual. They both applied for a refund from the state. Their applications were denied by the commissioner of taxation, and on appeal he was upheld by the Tax Court.

The Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians is an American Indian tribe located on the Red Lake Reservation within the boundaries of the State of Minnesota. The band has self-government under their current revised constitution and bylaws approved November 10, 1958. Under the constitution and bylaws the jurisdiction of the Red Lake Band extends to all lands of the reservation within the state. The governing body of the tribe is composed of the elected representatives of the Tribal Council.

The case presents only one question, namely, may the State of Minnesota levy an income tax on wages earned from employment on the Red Lake Reservation by an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians residing within the boundaries of the reservation.

We have had occasion to consider the unique status of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians in a number of cases. It is clear that members of this tribe occupy a status not common to other Indians in the state. It would serve no useful purpose to discuss at length the unique status that this tribe enjoys or the reasons why the state cannot deal with them as it does with Indians in other parts of the state. It is enough to say that the Federal government has not granted to the state civil or criminal jurisdiction over members of this tribe. As we have frequently said, when Congress enacted Public Law 280 (67 Stat. 588, ¹ 18 U.S.C.A. § 1162, and 28 U.S.C.A. § 1360) in 1953, which conferred on the state civil and criminal jurisdiction over other Indians in the state, it expressly excepted the Red Lake Reservation. In State v. Jackson, 218 Minn. 429, 16 N.W.2d 752, decided before the enactment of Public Law 280, we held that a tribal Indian could not be prosecuted by the state for shooting game out of season for consumption by himself and his family where the shooting occurred with the limits of the reservation of his tribe, upon ceded land not allotted to or occupied by him but allotted to a deceased Indian of the same tribe, no fee simple patent having been issued.

We have considered the status of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians in several cases subsequent to the enactment of Public Law 280. In State v. Holthusen, 261 Minn. 536, 113 N.W.2d 180, we held that a non-Indian could be prosecuted for the murder of another non-Indian within the boundaries of the Red Lake Reservation. There we discussed the status of the Red Lake Reservation and its member Indians at length. On County of Beltrami v. County of Hennepin (In re Settlement of Beaulieu) 264 Minn. 406, 119 N.W.2d 25, we held the enforcement of poor relief laws does not extend to members of the Red Lake Band while residing upon the Red Lake Reservation, because such residence does not ripen into legal settlement in the county within which the reservation is located. In State v. Lussier, 269 Minn. 176, 130 N.W.2d 484, we held that the state is without jurisdiction to prosecute a member of the Red Lake Band for burglary against the property of an Indian or another person within the Red Lake Reservation regardless of the ownership of the plot where the offense occurred. Finally, in Sigana v. Bailey, 282 Minn. 367, 164 N.W.2d 886, we held that the courts of the State of Minnesota have no jurisdiction over a tort action arising out of a collision between automobiles owned by enrolled members of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians which occurred within the territorial limits of the Red Lake Indian Reservation, even though the collision occurred on a state trunk highway which is maintained by the Minnesota Department of Highways. For an earlier discussion of the rights of tribal Indians, see Opsahl v. Johnson, 138 Minn. 42, 163 N.W. 988.

While its ruling is not a judicial decision, the Minnesota Department of Employment Security has determined that members of the Red Lake Band of Indians are not liable to make contributions to the Minnesota unemployment fund. In the Matter of Determination of Employer Liability of Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians (Appeal No. 20--7--L--61(269), June 14, 1962).

Thus, it seems clear that the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians within the boundaries of its reservation enjoys the autonomy that originally existed as to all Indians on reservations when Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. 515 (6 Pet. 515), 8 L.Ed. 483, was decided by the United States Supreme Court. Therein the rights of Indians on reservations were extensively discussed. The Court said (31 U.S. 560 (6 Pet. 560), 8 L.Ed. 501):

'The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community, occupying its own territory, with boundaries accurately described, in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter, but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves, or in conformity with treaties, and with the acts of Congress. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation is, by our Constitution and laws, vested in the government of the United States.

'* * * (T)he Acts of Georgia are repugnant to the Constitution, laws and treaties of the United States.

'They interfere forcibly with the relations established between the United States and the Cherokee nation, the regulation of which, according to the settled principles of our Constitution, are committed exclusively to the government of the Union.'

The above language, as has been pointed out in later cases, has been modified, and the Federal government has granted to the states civil and criminal jurisdiction over many other tribal Indians, but the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians still retains much of the autonomy originally referred to in Worcester, and the states may not interfere with this tribal self-government. The land of the Red Lake tribe has never been formally ceded to the United States. For a comprehensive history of the formation of the Red Lake Reservation, see Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U.S. 373, 22 S.Ct. 650, 46 L.Ed. 954.

In the case of Williams v. Lee, 358 U.S. 217, 219, 79 S.Ct. 269, 270, 3 L.Ed.2d 251, 253, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed the basic rule of Worcester v. Georgia, Supra, when it said:

'Despite bitter criticism and the defiance of Georgia which refused to obey this Court's mandate in Worcester the broad principles of that decision came to be accepted as law. Over the years this Court has modified these principles in cases Where essential tribal relations were not involved and where the rights of Indians would not be jeopardized, but the basic policy of Worcester has remained.' (Italics supplied.)

In Williams, the question was whether a non-Indian who operated a store on the Navajo reservation could sue an Indian in the Arizona state courts to collect for goods sold on credit. The court said (358 U.S. 223, 79 S.Ct. 272, 3 L.Ed.2d 255):

'* * * (T)o allow the exercise of state jurisdiction here would undermine the authority of the tribal courts over Reservation affairs and hence would infringe on the right of the Indians to govern themselves.'

The question, then, in cases involving assertion of a right by the state against members of the Red Lake Band is whether the action of the state will undermine the tribe's right of self-government.

The state devotes a large part of its brief in the present case to quoting substantial portions of the court's opinion in Organized Village of Kake v. Egan, 369 U.S. 60, 82 S.Ct. 562, 7 L.Ed.2d 573. It substantially ignores the companion case of Metlakatla Indian Community v. Egan, 369 U.S. 45, 82 S.Ct. 552, 7 L.Ed.2d 562. Both of these cases involved the right of Indians to operate salmon-fishing traps. Kake involved the right to operate off the reservation, and Metlakatla, apparently, on what had been created as a reservation. Neither of the cases involved a band of Indians anything like the Red Lake Band with which we are concerned. In Kake the court simply held that these Alaskan Indians were subject to Alaskan fishing laws. However, in Metlakatla, the court held that the secretary of the interior had paramount power to regulate the fishing rights of these Indians which Alaska could not abridge, but that the...