Louis v. U.S.

• Citation: 967 F.Supp. 456
• Decision Date: 10 June 1997
• Docket Number: Civil No. 96-1161 BB/DJS.
• Parties: Michelle LOUIS, Individually and as Personal Representative of Chelsey B. Louis, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico

Page 456

967 F.Supp. 456

Michelle LOUIS, Individually and as Personal Representative of Chelsey B. Louis, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES of America, Defendant.

Civil No. 96-1161 BB/DJS.

United States District Court, D. New Mexico.

June 10, 1997.

James S. Bromberg, Albuquerque, NM, for Plaintiff.

Marilyn S. Hutton, Asst. U.S. Atty., Albuquerque, NM, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER DENYING PLAINTIFF'S MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

BLACK, District Judge.

THIS MATTER is before the Court on Plaintiff's motion to render a summary judgment declaring that the Acoma Tribal Court has jurisdiction over this dispute. Having reviewed the briefs of counsel¹ and being otherwise duly advised, the Court finds Plaintiff's motion is not well taken and it should be Denied.

Discussion

The Acoma-Canoncito-Laguna Indian Hospital ("ACLIH") is operated by the United States and is located on the Acoma Pueblo. During the course of her pregnancy, Plaintiff, Michelle Louis, sought and received medical care at the ACLIH. Plaintiff gave birth to Chelsey Louis on November 13, 1994. Plaintiff and Chelsey Louis both sought and received medical care at ACLIH on November 16, 1994. Plaintiff maintains federal employees at ACLIH were negligent in their diagnosis and medical care and as a result Chelsey Louis died of an overwhelming infection on November 18, 1994.

Plaintiff filed a complaint for medical negligence and wrongful death against the United States in the United States District Court for the District of New Mexico on April 9, 1996. This complaint was subsequently dismissed without prejudice under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41. On June 25, 1996, Plaintiff filed a complaint for medical negligence and wrongful death against the United States in the Acoma Tribal Court. Maintaining that the Acoma Tribal Court did not have jurisdiction over this case, the Defendant United States declined to appear in the Tribal Court. The Acoma Court nonetheless took jurisdiction of the case, and scheduled a hearing on the merits. The United States again declined to appear in Tribal Court. On October 11, 1996, the Acoma Tribal Court rendered a decision in favor of Plaintiff and has apparently now entered a judgment against the United States in the amount of $1,991,770.00.

Plaintiff asks this Court to enter summary judgment and declare that "as a matter of comity [this Court should] abstain from rendering judgment" and instead should defer to the Acoma Tribal Court until all tribal court remedies have been exhausted. Plaintiff misconceives the role and scope of tribal jurisdiction, especially as it relates to the United States.

Historically, the doctrine of sovereign immunity served as an absolute bar to recovery by those who suffered injury or loss as a result of the tortious acts of employees of the United States. United States v. Dalm, 494 U.S. 596, 608, 110 S.Ct. 1361, 1368, 108 L.Ed.2d 548 (1990); United States v. Sherwood, 312 U.S. 584, 586, 61 S.Ct. 767, 769-70, 85 L.Ed. 1058 (1941). This immunity has often been invoked to block claims by Native Americans against the United States. See, e.g., Affiliated Ute Citizens v. United States, 406 U.S. 128, 141-42, 92 S.Ct. 1456, 1466-67, 31 L.Ed.2d 741 (1972); Blackfeather v. United States, 190 U.S. 368, 373, 23 S.Ct. 772, 774, 47 L.Ed. 1099 (1903); United States v. White Mountain Apache Tribe, 784 F.2d 917, 920 n. 10 (9th Cir.1986). The threshold question in any suit in which the United States is a defendant, then, must be whether Congress has specifically waived sovereign immunity. Taylor v. United States, 590 F.2d 263 (8th Cir.1979). Any such waiver of sovereign immunity must be expressed in a specific congressional authorization for such a claim. Garcia v. United States, 666 F.2d 960, 966 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 459 U.S. 832, 103 S.Ct. 73, 74 L.Ed.2d 72 (1982). A corollary to the immunity doctrine is that the United States can define the conditions under which legal actions are permitted against it. Honda v. Clark, 386 U.S. 484, 87 S.Ct. 1188, 18 L.Ed.2d 244 (1967). Consequently, a party instituting suit against the United States must bring the case within a specific Act of Congress before the Court has jurisdiction. United States v. Clarke, 33 U.S. (8 Pet.) 436, 8 L.Ed. 1001 (1834); Lunsford v. United States, 570 F.2d 221 (8th Cir.1977).

Plaintiff relies upon the Federal Tort Claims Act ("FTCA"), 28 U.S.C. § 2679(b)(1) as one basis for her claim. Section 1346(b) of the FTCA clearly defines the jurisdictional grant to federal courts to entertain suits brought against the United States sounding in tort: "[T]he district courts ... shall have exclusive jurisdiction of civil actions on claims against the United States...." 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b) (emphasis added). The terms of its consent as set forth expressly and specifically by Congress thus define the parameters of subject matter jurisdiction under the FTCA. See United States v. Orleans, 425 U.S. 807, 814, 96 S.Ct. 1971, 1975-76, 48 L.Ed.2d 390 (1976); Dalehite v. United States, 346 U.S. 15, 30-31, 73 S.Ct. 956, 965-66, 97 L.Ed. 1427 (1953); Sherwood, 312 U.S. at 590-91, 61 S.Ct. at 771-72; see also Baird v. United States, 653 F.2d 437 (10th Cir. 1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1144, 102 S.Ct. 1004, 71 L.Ed.2d 296 (1982). A suit brought under the FTCA in a court not specified in the Act is therefore subject to dismissal. See, e.g., Martinez v. Seaton, 285 F.2d 587, 589 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 366 U.S. 946, 81 S.Ct. 1677, 6 L.Ed.2d 856 (1961); Strick Corp. v. United States, 223 Ct.Cl. 262, 625 F.2d 1001, 1010 (1980) (Court of Claims has no pendent jurisdiction over a suit under the FTCA).

Rather than providing an express grant of subject matter jurisdiction to the Acoma Tribal Court, then, the FTCA clearly contemplates jurisdiction over such disputes only in federal district courts. The critical limitation specified in the FTCA is that exclusive jurisdiction is granted to "the district courts." 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b). "The term `district court of the United States' standing alone includes only the constitutional courts." Mookini v. United States, 303 U.S. 201, 205, 58 S.Ct. 543, 545, 82 L.Ed. 748 (1938). A "district court is a court constituted by Chapter 5 of Title 28." 28 U.S.C. § 451. As stated in 28 U.S.C. § 132,

(a) There shall be in each judicial district a district court which shall be a court of record known as the United States District Court for the district.

(b) Each district court shall consist of the district judge or judges for the district in regular active service.

New Mexico has but one judicial district and but one "district court." 28 U.S.C. § 111. As the Acoma Tribal Court is not a "district court" as defined by the FTCA, it has no jurisdiction over Plaintiff's claims. See Blue Legs v. United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, 867 F.2d 1094, 1098 (8th Cir.1989) (tribal court not a "district court" under RCRA; therefore exhaustion of tribal remedies not appropriate); Wells v. United States, 214 F.2d 380 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 348 U.S. 855, 75 S.Ct. 80, 99 L.Ed. 674 (1954) (Canal Zone not a "district court" and thus no jurisdiction under FTCA).

In addition to her tort claim, Plaintiff argues she is entitled to a declaratory judgment. In order to receive this relief, however, Plaintiff must assert some separate grant of jurisdiction. See United States v. King, 395 U.S. 1, 89 S.Ct. 1501, 23 L.Ed.2d 52 (1969). The Declaratory Judgment Act does not provide a source of jurisdiction that is independent of substantive federal law. Franchise Tax Bd. v. Construction Laborers Vacation Trust, 463 U.S. 1, 16-17 n. 14, 103 S.Ct. 2841, 2849-50 n. 14, 77 L.Ed.2d 420 (1983). Accordingly, the district court's power to grant declaratory relief must lie in some independent basis of federal subject matter jurisdiction. Amalgamated Sugar Co. v. Bergland, 664 F.2d 818, 822 (10th Cir.1981). Thus, because the Declaratory Judgment Act provides neither a separate grant of jurisdiction nor a separate waiver of sovereign immunity, see Robishaw Eng'g, Inc. v. United States, 891 F.Supp. 1134, 1142 (E.D.Va.1995), it cannot provide the foundation for the relief sought by Plaintiff.

Rather than provide citation to an express congressional grant of tribal court jurisdiction over this type of claim against the United States, Plaintiff asserts, "Acoma Tribal Court has presumptive subject matter jurisdiction in this case." (Pl.'s Mot.Summ.J. & Br.Supp. at 4). The United States Supreme Court recently rejected this premise in Strate v. A-1 Contractors, ___ U.S. ___, 117 S.Ct. 1404, 137 L.Ed.2d 661 (1997). In Strate, a unanimous Court made it clear that tribal court jurisdiction over nonmembers was not presumptive and certainly not preemptive of federal jurisdiction. After noting that although both the non-Indian litigants in Strate had some unrelated ties to the Tribe, and that the dispute arose out of an accident on a state highway within the exterior boundaries of the Fort Berthold Reservation, the Court observed that "when tribal-court jurisdiction over an action such as this one is challenged in federal court the otherwise applicable exhaustion requirement, see supra at ___-___, 117 S.Ct. at 1410-11, must give way for it would serve no purpose other than delay." Id. at ___ n. 14, 117 S.Ct. at 1416 n. 14. Rather, the Court found its earlier decision in National Farmers Union Insurance Cos. v. Crow Tribe, 471 U.S. 845, 105 S.Ct. 2447, 85 L.Ed.2d 818 (1985), did not express "anything more than a prudential exhaustion rule in deference to the capacity of tribal courts `to explain to the parties the precise basis for accepting [or rejecting] jurisdiction.'" Strate, ___ U.S. at ___, 117 S.Ct. at 1411 (quoting National Farmers, 471 U.S. at 857, 105 S.Ct. at 2454). Writing for the unanimous Court, Justice Ginsburg started with the premise "[o]ur case law establishes that, absent express authorization by federal statute or treaty, tribal...