Native Village of Venetie v. State of Alaska

• Decision Date: 13 May 1988
• Docket Number: No. F86-075 Civ.,F86-075 Civ.
• Citation: 687 F. Supp. 1380
• Parties: NATIVE VILLAGE OF VENETIE I.R.A. COUNCIL, Native Village of Fort Yukon I.R.A. Council, Nancy Joseph, and Maragaret Solomon, Plaintiffs, v. STATE OF ALASKA and John Pugh, in his official capacity as Commissioner of the Department of Health and Social Services, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Alaska

687 F. Supp. 1380

NATIVE VILLAGE OF VENETIE I.R.A. COUNCIL, Native Village of Fort Yukon I.R.A. Council, Nancy Joseph, and Maragaret Solomon, Plaintiffs, v. STATE OF ALASKA and John Pugh, in his official capacity as Commissioner of the Department of Health and Social Services, Defendants.

No. F86-075 Civ.

United States District Court, D. Alaska.

May 13, 1988.

Judith K. Bush and Andrew Harrington, Alaska Legal Services Corp., Fairbanks, Alaska, for plaintiffs.

Douglas K. Mertz, Office of Atty. Gen., State of Alaska, Juneau, Alaska, for defendants.

DECISION

KLEINFELD, District Judge.

This is evidently a test case brought by the plaintiffs to determine unsettled questions of the scope of the Indian Child Welfare Act. The plaintiffs seek to compel the state to recognize tribal court adoption decrees, although the tribal courts at issue have not taken the statutory steps to "reassume" jurisdiction. The two individual plaintiffs have refrained from adopting the children in state court, which would have resolved their individual problems, evidently in order to preserve standing for this case.

Two of the plaintiffs are the Native Village of Venetie and the Native Village of Fort Yukon Indian Reorganization Act Councils. The Native Villages are organized under the Indian Reorganization Act, 25 U.S.C. § 476 et seq. Also plaintiffs are Nancy Joseph and Margaret Solomon, described in the complaint as Native Athabaskan Indians from the Village of Fort Yukon. Venetie and Fort Yukon have populations as of the 1980 census of 132 and 586 respectively, and are 97.7% and 75.4% Native respectively. (Census data cited at plaintiffs' brief in support of motion for summary judgment, p. 6, fn. 9.)

Plaintiffs allege that Ms. Joseph obtained an order of adoption from the Tribal Court of the Native Village of Venetie on March 24, 1986, and unsuccessfully requested an amended birth certificate from the State of Alaska for the adopted child. Because the amended birth certificate was refused, she alleges, she was refused Aid to Families with Dependent Children benefits for the adopted child. Ms. Solomon allegedly followed the same course, having obtained her order from the Tribal Court of the Native Village of Fort Yukon.

Plaintiffs claim that they are entitled to have full faith and credit granted to the tribal court adoption orders under the Indian Child Welfare Act, 25 U.S.C. § 1901 et seq. They seek an injunction commanding the State of Alaska (1) to issue amended birth certificates to Joseph and Solomon based on the tribal court adoption decrees in these particular cases, and (2) to no longer refuse amended birth certificates to anyone on grounds of nonrecognition of tribal court decrees. They also seek a declaratory judgment that the state policy of refusing recognition to tribal court decrees violates the law.

Plaintiffs' motion for preliminary injunction was denied. This decision addresses the cross motions for summary judgment. Plaintiffs argue that there is no genuine issue of material fact, and that they are entitled to the relief requested as a matter of law. Defendants argue that dismissal is required under the Eleventh Amendment, and alternatively, that plaintiffs fail to state a claim upon which relief can be granted because the State's action was in accord with federal law.

The fundamental question in this case is whether the tribal courts have jurisdiction to issue adoption decrees, even though they have not complied with statutory provisions for reassuming such jurisdiction. The Constitution immunizes the defendants against plaintiffs' claims for money damages and declaratory relief regarding past conduct, but does not bar plaintiffs' prayer for an injunction. The injunction must be denied, however, because the tribal courts have not reassumed jurisdiction as provided for in the Indian Child Welfare Act. The tribal courts can obtain jurisdiction, but only by complying with the statutory procedures.

Some states, called "Public Law 280 states," operate under federal statutes stripping tribal courts of most of their traditional jurisdiction, and giving state courts jurisdiction over Indian country in most respects. Alaska is one of these states. In "P.L. 280 states," tribal courts must obtain Interior Department approval of their structures and procedures in order to obtain exclusive jurisdiction over child custody cases pursuant to the Indian Child Welfare Act. This is called "reassumption of jurisdiction" in ICWA language. The tribal courts in this case have not undertaken this "reassumption" process.

Plaintiffs concede that the tribal courts therefore cannot enjoy the exclusive jurisdiction conferred by the Indian Child Welfare Act. Plaintiffs argue that the tribal courts nevertheless retain a residue of concurrent jurisdiction, not abolished by P.L. 280, so that the tribal court decrees are entitled to full faith and credit under ICWA. The source of this power, plaintiffs argue, is the inherent "tribal sovereignty" of the native villages bringing this action. This subtle argument requires extensive analysis of the doctrine of "tribal sovereignty" as well as the terms of the statutes. Although American law has always recognized "tribal sovereignty" for some purposes, the word "sovereignty" means less in this context than in ordinary English, and the concept cannot carry the freight with which plaintiffs would load it.

THE ELEVENTH AMENDMENT

The Eleventh Amendment to the United States Constitution limits peoples' rights to sue state governments in federal courts. This is accomplished by limiting the jurisdiction of federal courts in suits against state governments. It is therefore necessary to determine what those limitations are, and how they apply to the plaintiffs' complaint.

As now construed by the Supreme Court, the Eleventh Amendment generally bars actions against state governments in federal court for money damages, but permits actions in federal courts against state government officials for prospective injunctive relief. Exceptions to the bar on damages relief exist, but none apply to this case. Eleventh Amendment jurisprudence has developed a great deal in the last few years, so a summary facilitates application to this case.

Defendants claim immunity from all of plaintiffs' claims under the Eleventh Amendment. Plaintiffs argue that the Eleventh Amendment immunity does not bar their action because they claim no retrospective damages, Congress has abrogated applicability of the Eleventh Amendment for Indian claims such as this, and the Amendment does not bar declaratory or injunctive relief. Neither side is entirely correct.

Originally, the United States Constitution provided that federal judicial power extended to controversies "between a State and Citizens of another State." U.S. Const., Art. III, § 2. Eight years after ratification, to reverse a Supreme Court decision, this provision was changed by the Eleventh Amendment. The Amendment provides as follows:

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

The Amendment means both more and less than what it appears to say. No one would guess the judicially established meaning of the Amendment from its words.

One might think that the reference to "citizens of another state" would imply that the Amendment restricts suits only by persons from other states as well as foreigners, not actions by citizens of the same state, but that is not so. The Eleventh Amendment has long been construed to apply to citizens of the same state as well as other states. The theory was that it revived a general principle of sovereign immunity for states in federal courts, erroneously ignored by the Supreme Court decision which the Amendment reversed. Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 10 S.Ct. 504, 33 L.Ed. 842 (1890).

One might also think that the amendment erects the same bar to suits for injunctions as it does to actions for money damages, because it applies to "any suit in law or equity." Yet the Amendment has long been construed to allow actions in federal court for injunctions requiring states to obey the United States Constitution. The theory of this limitation is that when a state official acts unconstitutionally, the inability of the state legally to authorize his conduct strips it of its official or representative character. Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123, 28 S.Ct. 441, 52 L.Ed. 714 (1908) (federal court can enjoin a state attorney general from enforcing a state statute which violates the Commerce Clause and the Fourteenth Amendment). The theory has the oddity of treating the state official's conduct as state action for purposes of conferring jurisdiction under the Fourteenth Amendment, but distinguishing it from state action to allow suit in federal court despite the Eleventh Amendment. Doctrines, like people, are sometimes excused from the requirement of logical consistency when they are eighty years old.

The practical effect of the Eleventh Amendment is that "when a plaintiff sues a state official alleging a violation of federal law, the federal court may award an injunction that governs the official's future conduct, but not one that awards retroactive monetary relief." Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 677, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 1362, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974), as summarized in Pennhurst State School & Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 103, 104 S.Ct. 900, 909, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984). The bar erected by the Eleventh Amendment is not lifted by phrasing the relief as an injunction to pay money wrongfully withheld; whether phrased as an injunction or a damages award, retrospective relief requiring payment of money from the state treasury is barred. Edelman, 415 U.S. at 664, 94 S.Ct. at 1356. Nor can the federal court issue a declaratory judgment regarding past conduct. Such a...