Gila River Indian Community v. Henningson, Durham & Richardson, 78-1483

• Decision Date: 29 August 1980
• Docket Number: No. 78-1483,78-1483
• Citation: 626 F.2d 708
• Parties: GILA RIVER INDIAN COMMUNITY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HENNINGSON, DURHAM & RICHARDSON, a Nebraska Corporation, and Ranier Construction Company, Inc., an Arizona Corporation, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

Page 708

626 F.2d 708

GILA RIVER INDIAN COMMUNITY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. HENNINGSON, DURHAM & RICHARDSON, a Nebraska Corporation, and Ranier Construction Company, Inc., an Arizona Corporation, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 78-1483.

United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted May 15, 1980.

Decided Aug. 29, 1980.

Z. Simpson Cox, Cox & Cox, Phoenix, Ariz., for plaintiff-appellant.

Neil Vincent Wake, Phoenix, Ariz., argued, for defendants-appellees; Riney B. Salmon, II, Jennings, Strouss & Salmon, Phoenix, Ariz., on brief.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Arizona.

Before HUG and ALARCON, Circuit Judges, and BLUMENFELD ^*, District judge.

HUG, Circuit Judge:

This is an action brought by the Gila River Indian Community against an architectural firm and a building contractor for damages for the negligent design and construction of a Youth Center on the Gila River Indian Reservation. The district court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. Appellant contends that jurisdiction exists under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1362. ¹ The major issue on this appeal is the extent of the jurisdiction afforded by section 1362.

In 1966, Congress enacted 28 U.S.C. § 1362 which provides for district court jurisdiction over suits brought by Indian tribes or bands:

The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions, brought by any Indian tribe or band with a governing body duly recognized by the Secretary of the Interior, wherein the matter in controversy arises under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States.

In this appeal we are faced with the question of whether Congress intended federal jurisdiction in such suits to be broader than that of the jurisdiction of the district courts in suits brought under the general federal question jurisdiction statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1331, ² and if so, whether such jurisdiction extends to this type of case. Appellant contends that the district court erred in concluding that jurisdiction under section 1362 does not extend to the facts of the present case. We affirm.

I

The appellant, the Gila River Indian Community ("Tribe"), is composed of the confederated Pima and Maricopa tribes of Indians. The Tribe was organized pursuant to 25 U.S.C. § 476. The Secretary of the Interior approved the constitution and bylaws of the Tribe on May 14, 1936. ³ Fee title to the land on the Gila River Indian Reservation ("Reservation") is held by the United States in trust for the Tribe. The present action was commenced at the direction of the Gila River Indian Community Council, the Tribe's governing body.

The complaint alleges that the appellees, Henningson, Durham, & Richardson, Inc. ("Henningson"), an architectural and engineering firm, and Ranier Construction Company, Inc. ("Ranier"), a contracting firm, improperly designed and constructed a Youth Center located on the Reservation at Sacaton, Arizona. The Youth Center was completed in 1969. The complaint alleges that in 1973 the Youth Center began to break up and come apart to the point that the Tribe was forced to abandon the building. The alleged causes of the defects of the Youth Center are: the negligence of Henningson in its faulty design of the building, its failure to specify the proper manner of, and materials to be used in, the construction, and its inadequate supervision and inspection during construction; and the negligence of Ranier in construction of the building.

The district court dismissed without prejudice the action against both Henningson and Ranier, holding that the complaint pleaded a cause of action for breach of contract arising solely under state law. It was the conclusion of the district court that jurisdiction could not exist under section 1331, and that Congress did not intend to extend the jurisdictional reach of section 1362 to the facts of the present case.

The Tribe filed a motion for rehearing and a motion for leave to file an amended complaint. The district court denied both these motions, stating that the allegations contained in the amended complaint raised no new relevant issues nor did they cure the jurisdictional defects of the original complaint. The Tribe appeals from the original order of dismissal and the order denying the motions for reconsideration and to amend. ⁴

The Tribe contends that the language "arises under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States" in section 1362 extends to all suits in which the United States could have represented an Indian tribe under 25 U.S.C. § 175. ⁵ In the alternative, the Tribe contends that the present action should be governed by federal common law, thus fulfilling the "arising under" requirement.

II

Congress used identical "arising under" language in sections 1331 and 1362, the difference being that section 1362 does not contain the $10,000 jurisdictional amount requirement. Appellees argue that Congress intended the jurisdictional amount requirement to be the only difference between the two statutes, and that section 1362 still requires a case to come within the "arising under" doctrine.

The plain meaning of the language used by Congress in section 1362 would tend to support appellees' position. This court has recently examined overreliance on the "plain meaning" rule, however. See Church of Scientology v. United States Department of Justice, 612 F.2d 417, 420-22 (9th Cir. 1979). Resort to legislative history is not inappropriate where application of the "plain meaning" rule would lead to an unreasonable result "plainly at variance with the policy of the legislation as a whole." Id. at 422, quoting United States v. American Trucking Associations, 310 U.S. 534, 60 S.Ct. 1059, 84 L.Ed. 1345 (1940), quoting Ozawa v. United States, 260 U.S. 178, 194, 43 S.Ct. 65, 67, 67 L.Ed. 199 (1922). In the present case resort to the legislative history is appropriate because of the strong federal interest in the protection of Indians, see Moses v. Kinnear, 490 F.2d 21, 25 (9th Cir. 1974), and because of what may be interpreted as indications in case law of this circuit and the Supreme Court that section 1362 may have a broader jurisdictional reach than section 1331.

There is language in the legislative history that elimination of the $10,000 amount requirement was intended to be the only difference between the two sections.

The House Report states:

The purpose of the proposed legislation is to provide that the district courts are to have original jurisdiction of all civil actions brought by Indian tribes or bands wherein the matter in controversy arises under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. These civil actions would therefore be permitted without regard to the $10,000 jurisdictional amount provided in section 1331(a) of title 28, when brought by an Indian tribe or band under the authority of the new section added by the bill.

By adding a new section 1362 to chapter 85 of title 28 of the United States Code, the bill would add language to that title making it possible for an Indian tribe or band having a governing body recognized by the Secretary of the Interior to bring actions in a district court where the matter in controversy arises under the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. In providing for original jurisdiction of all civil actions of this type, the bill has the effect of removing the $10,000 jurisdictional requirement which presently applies as to such actions by reason of the provisions of section 1331 of the same chapter of title 28. The district courts now have jurisdiction over cases presenting Federal questions brought by the tribes when the amount in dispute exceeds $10,000. Enactment of this bill would merely authorize the additional jurisdiction of the court over those cases where the tribes are not able to establish that the amount in controversy exceeds that amount. In its report to the Senate Committee, the Department of the Interior specifically pointed out that the issues involved in cases involving tribal lands that either are held in trust or were so held by the United States or are held by the tribe subject to restriction against alienation imposed by the United States are Federal issues. The Department therefore observed that particularly as to this class of cases it is appropriate that the actions be brought in a U.S. district court. In its statement to the Senate committee, that Department referred to the unique governmental status of Indian tribes and the unique relationship which exists between them and the Federal Government. This is a relationship often affected by treaties and the Department of the Interior indicated that a tribe's desire to have a Federal forum for matters based upon Federal questions is justified.

In his statement before the Senate committee, the representative of the Department of Interior stated that it was the Department's view that the creation of the jurisdiction contemplated by the bill will not add appreciably to the burdens of the Federal courts. As has been noted, these courts now entertain cases brought by the Federal Government to vindicate tribal rights without regard to the amount in controversy. Further, they now entertain cases presenting Federal questions brought by the tribes when the amount in dispute exceeds $10,000. This bill would therefore authorize the addition of only those cases, which the Justice Department stated would probably not be large in number, where the tribes have not been able to show that the amount in controversy exceeds $10,000, and the Government for some reason does not want to prosecute the case in behalf of the tribe. The Judicial Conference in commenting on this type of case has stated that the jurisdiction contemplated by the bill would present no difficulty of judicial administration.

H.R.Rep.No.2040, 89th Cong., 2nd Sess., reprinted in (1966) U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 3145-47 (emphasis added). The Tribe points to language in the...