Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. State

• Decision Date: 05 May 2014
• Docket Number: No. 13–10566.,13–10566.
• Citation: 750 F.3d 1238
• Parties: SEMINOLE TRIBE OF FLORIDA, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. State of FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE, Marshall Stranburg, in his official capacity as the Interim Executive Director and Deputy Executive Director of the Florida Department of Revenue, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

750 F.3d 1238

SEMINOLE TRIBE OF FLORIDA, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.State of FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE, Marshall Stranburg, in his official capacity as the Interim Executive Director and Deputy Executive Director of the Florida Department of Revenue, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 13–10566.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

May 5, 2014.

Kristen Marie Fiore, Katherine E. Giddings, Michael J. Larson, Akerman LLP, Tallahassee, FL, Glen A. Stankee, William S. Spencer, Akerman Senterfitt, LLP, Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Jonathan Alan Glogau, Rachel E. Nordby, Leah Anne Sevi, Attorney General's Office, Tallahassee, FL, Pam Bondi, Attorney General's Office, Ft. Lauderdale, FL, for Defendant–Appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. D.C. Docket No. 0:12–cv–62238–JIC.

Before PRYOR and JORDAN, Circuit Judges, and FRIEDMAN,^* District Judge.

PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

This appeal requires us to decide whether the sovereign immunity of Florida, as confirmed by the Eleventh Amendment, U.S. Const. Amend. XI, bars a federal complaint by an Indian tribe against the Florida Department of Revenue and its Executive Director for a declaratory judgment that the tribe is exempt from paying a Florida tax on fuel and for an injunction requiring a refund of taxes paid. The Seminole Tribe of Florida contends that a Florida tax on motor and diesel fuel purchased off tribal lands violates the Indian Commerce Clause, U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 3, the Indian sovereignty doctrine, and the Equal Protection Clause, U.S. Const. Amend. XIV, § 1. After a state court rejected a complaint by the Tribe about fuel taxes paid between 2004 and 2006, the Tribe filed a federal complaint about taxes paid between 2009 and 2012. The district court dismissed the federal complaint based on a judicial doctrine that bars federal district courts from reviewing state court judgments, Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923); D.C. Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983), and, alternatively, based on the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1341. But we need not decide the correctness of those rulings because we conclude that the Department and its Director enjoy sovereign immunity from this suit. We AFFIRM the dismissal of the complaint filed by the Tribe.

I. BACKGROUND

The Seminole Tribe of Florida is a federally recognized Indian tribe. SeeIndian Entities Recognized & Eligible to Receive Services from the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, 78 Fed.Reg. 26,384, 26,387 (May 6, 2013); Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934, § 16, ch. 576, 48 Stat. 984, 987 (codified as amended at 25 U.S.C. § 476). Like any other entity in Florida, the Tribe pays a state tax on the purchase of fuel. SeeFla. Stat. § 206.01 et seq. The State, counties, and municipalities use revenues from that tax to construct and repair transportation facilities, roads, bridges, and paths. See, e.g., Fla. Const. Art. 12, § 9(c)(5); Fla. Stat. §§ 206.60(1)(b)(1), 206.605(1), (2). For administrative convenience, the State precollects the tax from suppliers of fuel before the suppliers sell the fuel to consumers. SeeFla. Stat. § 206.41(4)(a), (6). The cost of the tax is then passed on to the consumer of the fuel when the consumer purchases fuel at a retail gas station. Even though the Department precollects the tax from a supplier before the fuel is sold to the ultimate consumer, Florida law provides that the “legal incidence of the tax” is “on the ultimate consumer.” Id. § 206.41(4)(a).

Florida law exempts some consumers, but not the Tribe, from the fuel tax. If a consumer is exempt from the tax, then the consumer may obtain a refund from the Department for the amount of fuel taxes the consumer has paid. Id. § 206.41(4), (5). For example, the Department refunds any fuel taxes paid by a municipality for fuel used in a municipal vehicle, and the municipality uses that refund for the construction and maintenance of roadways within its borders. Id. § 206.41(4)(d). Likewise, any consumer who uses fuel for agricultural, aquacultural, commercial fishing, or commercial aviation purposes is exempt from the tax and eligible for a refund from the Department. Id. § 206.41(4)(c).

Florida law does not exempt the Tribe from the fuel tax, and the Department has refused to refund taxes the Tribe paid when it purchased fuel at gas stations located off tribal lands. The Tribe argues that, because it maintains its own roadways, it is entitled to a refund for taxes paid for fuel expended on tribal lands by vehicles carrying out essential government services, regardless of where the Tribe purchased the fuel. The Department argues that the Tribe does not actually use the fuel on tribal lands because Florida law defines the “use” of fuel as occurring when consumers fill the fuel tanks in their vehicles. Id.§ 206.01(24) (defining “use” as “the placing of motor or diesel fuel into any receptacle on a motor vehicle from which fuel is supplied for the propulsion thereof”).

The Tribe has twice sued the Department about whether the Tribe is exempt from the fuel tax. The Tribe filed the first suit in a state court and the second in a federal court. Both times the Tribe lost.

The Tribe first sued the Department in a Florida court for a refund of fuel taxes paid between January 1, 2004, and February 28, 2006. The Tribe also sought a declaratory judgment that the fuel expended on tribal lands was exempt from the tax. A Florida court of appeals held that the tax did not violate the Indian Commerce Clause because the State levied the tax at gas stations located off tribal lands. Fla. Dep't of Revenue v. Seminole Tribe of Fla., 65 So.3d 1094, 1097 (Fla.4th Dist.Ct.App.2011), review denied,86 So.3d 1114 (Fla.2012).

The Tribe then filed a federal complaint that contested liability for $393,247.30 in fuel taxes paid by the Tribe between June 7, 2009, and March 31, 2012. The Tribe sought both declaratory judgments and an injunction in the following six counts of its complaint: first, a declaratory judgment that the Tribe is exempt from the fuel tax because the tax, levied on fuel expended on tribal lands, violates the Indian Commerce Clause, U.S. Const. Art. I, § 8, cl. 3; second, a declaratory judgment that the Tribe is exempt from the fuel tax because the tax, levied on fuel used to provide essential government services, violates the Indian Commerce Clause and the Indian sovereignty doctrine; third, a declaratory judgment that the Tribe is entitled to a refund under the Equal Protection Clause, U.S. Const. Amend. XIV, § 1, because Florida exempts fuel used in vehicles operated by municipal or county governments from the tax, but not fuel used in vehicles operated by the Tribe that perform essential government services; fourth, a declaratory judgment that the Tribe is entitled to a refund under the Equal Protection Clause because Florida exempts other groups that do not use state roadways, but does not exempt the Tribe even though it uses fuel on its roadways on tribal lands; fifth, a declaratory judgment that the Tribe is entitled to a refund under the Equal Protection Clause because Florida uses the tax revenues for the construction and maintenance of roadways, and the Tribe constructs and maintains its own roadways on its tribal lands; sixth, an injunction barring the Department from refusing to refund the taxes paid for fuel that the Tribe used on its land to perform essential government services.

The district court dismissed the complaint for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The district court ruled that the decisions in Rooker v. Fidelity Trust Co., 263 U.S. 413, 44 S.Ct. 149, 68 L.Ed. 362 (1923), and District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman, 460 U.S. 462, 103 S.Ct. 1303, 75 L.Ed.2d 206 (1983), barred the Tribe from relitigating its earlier complaint filed in Florida court. The district court also ruled, in the alternative, that the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1341, barred the complaint. The district court did not address whether sovereign immunity or res judicata barred the complaint even though the Department and its Director raised those defenses too.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

We review the dismissal of a complaint de novo.Federated Mut. Ins. Co. v. McKinnon Motors, LLC, 329 F.3d 805, 807 (11th Cir.2003).

III. DISCUSSION

The Tribe challenges both grounds upon which the district court dismissed its complaint, but we need not decide those issues if we affirm the dismissal on the alternative ground that sovereign immunity bars the complaint. The Tribe argues that its federal complaint did not seek to overturn a previous state court judgment because the previous state judgmentinvolved taxes paid between 2004 and 2006 and the later federal complaint challenged taxes paid between 2009 and 2012. Cf. Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Saudi Basic Indus. Corp., 544 U.S. 280, 293, 125 S.Ct. 1517, 1527, 161 L.Ed.2d 454 (2005) (“If a federal plaintiff presents some independent claim, albeit one that denies a legal conclusion that a state court has reached [,] ... then there is jurisdiction and state law determines whether the defendant prevails under principles of preclusion.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). The Tribe also argues that the Tax Injunction Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1341, did not bar its complaint because another federal statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1362, as interpreted in Moe v. Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation, allows the Tribe to challenge the state tax. 425 U.S. 463, 473–75, 96 S.Ct. 1634, 1641–42, 48 L.Ed.2d 96 (1976) (“Here the United States could have made the same attack on the State's assertion of taxing power as was in fact made by the Tribe.”). But we may affirm the dismissal of a complaint on any ground supported by the record even if that ground was not considered by the district court, Powers v. United States, 996 F.2d...