Gristede's Foods, Inc. v. Unkechuage Nation

• Decision Date: 08 October 2009
• Docket Number: No. 06-cv-1260 (KAM).,06-cv-1260 (KAM).
• Citation: 660 F.Supp.2d 442
• Parties: GRISTEDE'S FOODS, INC., Plaintiffs, v. UNKECHUAGE NATION, a/k/a Unkechuage Poospatuck Tribe; Harry Wallace; and The Poospatuck Smoke Shop and Trading Post, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of New York

660 F.Supp.2d 442

GRISTEDE'S FOODS, INC., Plaintiffs, v. UNKECHUAGE NATION, a/k/a Unkechuage Poospatuck Tribe; Harry Wallace; and The Poospatuck Smoke Shop and Trading Post, Defendants.

No. 06-cv-1260 (KAM).

United States District Court, E.D. New York.

October 8, 2009.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Howard Kleinhendler, William B. Wachtel, Meagan A. Zapotocky, Wachtel & Masyr, LLP, New York, NY, for Plaintiff.

Scott M. Moore, Moore International Law Office, James Simermeyer, Law Offices of James F. Simermeyer PC, Peter E. Quijano, New York, NY, Robert J. Kipnees, John Albert Fialcowitz, Lowenstein Sandler PC, Roseland, NJ, William C. Cagney, Windels Marx Lane & Mittendorf LLP, New Brunswick, NJ, Benjamin Fenner, Fredericks Peebles & Morgan LLP, Omaha, NE, Steven J. Bloxham, Monteau & Peebles LLP, Sacramento, CA, Peter C. Kaiteris, Thomas P. Solferino, Solferino & Solferino, LLP, Mineola, NY, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM & ORDER

MATSUMOTO, District Judge:

Pending before the court is the motion of defendants Unkechuage Nation a/k/a Unkechuage Poospatuck Tribe, Harry Wallace, and the Poospatuck Smoke Shop and Trading Post to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. For the reasons set forth below, the defendants' motion is granted with respect to the Unkechuage Nation and Harry Wallace, to the extent that Harry Wallace is sued in his official tribal capacity. The defendants' motion is denied with respect to Harry Wallace in his individual capacity and with respect to the Poospatuck Smoke Shop.

BACKGROUND

I. Procedural History

On March 20, 2006, plaintiff Gristede's Foods, Inc. ("Gristede's" or "plaintiff") commenced this action against the Unkechuage Nation, a/k/a Unkechuage Poospatuck Tribe (the "Unkechuage," "Poospatuck" or "tribe") and the Shinnecock Tribe, a/k/a the Shinnecock Indian Nation (the "Shinnecock"); individual defendants Harry Wallace ("Wallace" or "Chief Wallace"), Randall King, James W. Eleazer, Jr., and Lance A. Gumbs; the Poospatuck Smoke Shop and Trading Post (the "Poospatuck Smoke Shop" or "Smoke Shop") and Shinnecock, Ltd. Plaintiff, a chain of supermarkets in the New York City area, alleged violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act ("RICO"), 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961-68, and the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a), and state law claims for unjust enrichment, unfair competition, deceptive trade practices, and false advertising arising from defendants' tax-free cigarette sales and advertising. The Unkechuage inhabits approximately 50 acres of land along the bank of the Poospatuck Creek on the southern coast of what is now the Town of Brookhaven on Long Island, New York.

In July 2006, the defendants who were parties to this action at the time filed a motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, asserting that they are immune from suit by virtue of their sovereign status as Indian tribes or entities thereof. In an order dated December 22, 2006, the court deferred ruling on the Rule 12(b)(1) motion pending further briefing and an evidentiary hearing on the tribal status of the Shinnecock and Unkechuage defendants. (Dkt. No. 29 at 12 (holding that the criteria for tribal recognition pursuant to federal common law as articulated by Montoya v. United States, 180 U.S. 261, 265, 21 S.Ct. 358, 45 L.Ed. 521 (1901) applies to the determination of the Shinnecock and Unkechuage defendants' tribal status).) After filing a motion for reconsideration, the defendants were granted leave to file new motions pursuant Rule 12(b)(6). Defendants' motions to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) and for reconsideration were subsequently withdrawn without prejudice to reinstatement of the Rule 12(b)(1) motion if their new Rule 12(b)(6) motions were denied. (Dkt. No. 41.)

On November 5, 2007, the court denied in part the defendants' motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) and permitted the defendants to renew their motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1). Judge Amon referred discovery and the evidentiary hearing relating to the defendants' tribal status to the undersigned, who was the assigned Magistrate Judge at the time. The court set dates for discovery on the issue of tribal status and a hearing for the defendants' Rule 12(b)(1) motions. On November 28, 2007, Judge Amon issued a supplemental order, detailing the court's reasoning for its November 5, 2007 partial grant and denial of defendants' motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), and granting plaintiff leave to amend its complaint. On December 21, 2007, plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint to include those claims sustained by the court—the false advertising claim under the Lanham Act and the state consumer fraud claims— and to properly name Lance A. Gumbs in his individual capacity for his ownership and operation of the Shinnecock Trading Post, previously identified as Shinnecock, Ltd. Defendants Shinnecock, Randall King, James W. Eleazer, Jr., Lance A. Gumbs and Shinnecock Trading Post subsequently decided not to pursue their Rule 12(b)(1) motion and successfully requested that the court vacate the tribal status discovery schedule as to them. (Dkt. Order 1/4/08.)

Discovery on the issue of tribal status proceeded before the undersigned with regard to the remaining Unkechuage defendants. Following the undersigned's appointment as a United States District Judge, the case was reassigned from Judge Amon on August 15, 2008. On August 18, 2008, plaintiff filed a Second Amended Complaint naming additional defendants not parties to the Rule 12(b)(1) motion. The evidentiary hearing regarding tribal status was held on September 3, 2008 through September 8, 2008, before the undersigned. At the close of the hearing, the court ordered the parties to "confer regarding the submission of a comprehensive collection of the exhibits admitted into evidence and file those exhibits by ECF no later than 9/15/08." (Minute Entry 9/8/08; 9/8/08 Tr. at 289-290.)¹ The parties complied with the court order and submitted a complete copy of all admitted joint exhibits on September 15, 2008. (Dkt. Nos. 168-372.) The parties submitted pre- and post-hearing briefs and the court heard closing arguments on December 22, 2008.

II. The Tribal Status Hearing

In deciding a Rule 12(b)(1) motion to dismiss, the court may rely on and refer to evidence outside the pleadings. J.S. v. Attica Cent. Schs., 386 F.3d 107, 110 (2d Cir.2004). Pursuant to Judge Amon's order of December 22, 2006, the court held an evidentiary hearing on the issue of whether the Unkechuage meets the common law definition of a "tribe," defined by the United States Supreme Court in 1901 as "a body of Indians of the same or a similar race, united in a community under one leadership or government, and inhabiting a particular though sometimes ill-defined territory" ("Montoya criteria"). Montoya v. United States, 180 U.S. 261, 266, 36 Ct.Cl. 577, 21 S.Ct. 358, 45 L.Ed. 521 (1901).

At the hearing, the court first heard testimony from defendants' expert witness, Dr. John Strong, and fact witness, defendant Harry Wallace, Chief of the Unkechuage. The court qualified Dr. Strong as an expert in the area of Native Americans in Colonial America with an emphasis on the Indians of the East Coast and Long Island. (9/3 Tr. at 17.) Dr. Strong graduated from St. Lawrence University with a B.A. in History in 1957. He obtained a Master's Degree in 1959, and a Ph.D. in social science from Syracuse University in 1967. He received a National Endowment for the Humanities award in the area of archaeology in 1978 and a Fulbright award in 1998. Dr. Strong is a professor emeritus at Long Island University, where he taught from 1965 until 1998. Dr. Strong has written three books about the Indians of Long Island and approximately 25-30 peer-reviewed articles in journals, and has presented more than thirty papers at professional conferences. This is the first lawsuit in which Dr. Strong has testified as an expert. (9/3 Tr. at 6-14.) Dr. Strong's research is in ethnohistory, an interdisciplinary field that emerged in the latter half of the last century. Ethnohistory combines models of analysis and strategies of research from anthropology, history and archaeology, and is commonly used when studying cultures without written records. (9/3 Tr. at 14.) Dr. Strong considers his area of expertise to be 17th century colonial history with an emphasis on contact between Native Americans and Europeans. (9/3 Tr. at 16.)

The court then heard testimony from defendants' fact witness, Chief Harry Wallace. Chief Wallace is an Unkechuage member and current Unkechuage Chief, and has lived on the Unkechuage reservation at Poospatuck continuously since 1991. (9/3 Tr. at 81, 129-130.) Chief Wallace earned his Bachelor's Degree from Dartmouth College in 1975, where he majored in American history and studied Native American issues. He earned a J.D. cum laude from New York Law School, where he wrote his thesis on Indian sovereignty and Eastern United States Indian land claims. (9/4 Tr. at 65-67.)

Additionally, the court heard testimony from plaintiff's experts, Joyce Davis and James Lynch. Ms. Davis was qualified as an expert in the field of genealogy, which she defined as the "study of families generationally." (9/4 Tr. at 186, 239-240.) Ms. Davis received her Associate's Degree in Language Arts in 1971 from West Valley College in Campbell, California and completed her Bachelor's Degree in Native American Studies in 1995 at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. Ms. Davis testified that she took some genealogy "classes through extension" while she was in college and through "historical agencies." (9/4 Tr. at 186-188.) From 1993 until 1996, Ms. Davis was an Assistant Genealogical Researcher at the Bureau of Indian Affairs ("BIA") at the Department of Interior. (9/4 Tr. at 189.) Upon leaving...