Standing Rock Sioux Tribe v. Janklow
| Decision Date | 02 March 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. Civ97-1015.,Civ97-1015. |
| Citation | 103 F.Supp.2d 1146 |
| Parties | STANDING ROCK SIOUX TRIBE, Plaintiff, and United States of America, on behalf of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Its Members, Plaintiff-Intervener, v. William J. JANKLOW, Governor of South Dakota; et al., Defendants. United States of America, on behalf of the Lower Brule Sioux, Yankton Sioux, Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux, Flandreau Santee Sioux, Crow Creek Sioux, and Oglala Sioux Tribes and Their Respective Members, Plaintiff, v. State of South Dakota, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of South Dakota |
Terry L. Pechota, Viken, Viken, Pechota, Leach & Dewell, Rapid City, SD, William R. Perry, Anne D. Noto, Sonosky, Chambers, Sachse & Endreson, Washington, DC, for plaintiffs.
Cheryl Schrempp Dupris, U.S. Attorney's Office, Pierre, SD, Lois J. Schiffer, U.S. Department of Justice Environmental Defense Section, Washington, DC, Charles Jakosa, Environmental & Natural Resources Division Indian Resources Section U.S. Department of Justice Washington, DC, for plaintiff-intervenor.
John P. Guhin, Lawrence E. Long, Charles D. McGuigan, Attorney General's Office, Pierre, SD, Andrew Lee Fergel, Hughes County State's Attorney's Office, Pierre, SD, Steven L. Aberle, McIntosh, SD, for defendants.
AMENDED MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
[¶ 1] Pending before the Court in this consolidated action are Standing Rock Sioux Tribe's motion for partial summary judgment (Doc. 53), United States' motion for partial summary judgment (Doc. 57), and the defendants' motion for relief from injunctions (Doc. 60). The motions have been fully briefed and the Court will decide the motions based upon the record herein.
[¶ 2] The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe ("the Tribe") filed CIV 97-1015 in 1997 to challenge the State of South Dakota's ("State") authority to continue to collect the motor vehicle excise tax imposed by SDCL § 32-5B-11 ("the excise tax") from tribal members residing on the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation ("the Reservation") and to recover excise taxes unlawfully collected from its members by the defendants. The United States sought to intervene on behalf of the Tribe and its members on November 12, 1998 (Doc. 29). The Court granted the United States' motion to intervene in CIV 97-1015. On the same date the United States filed a motion to intervene in CIV 97-1015, the United States filed a separate action, CIV 98-1037, on behalf of the Lower Brule Sioux, Yankton Sioux2, Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux, Flandreau Santee Sioux, Crow Creek Sioux and Oglala Sioux Tribes and their respective members, seeking declaratory relief, injunctive relief and monetary damages as a result of the State's unlawful imposition and collection of the excise tax from tribal members residing in Indian country. In February 1999, the Court consolidated CIV 97-1015 with CIV 98-1037.
[¶ 3] Prior to the filing of CIV 97-1015 and CIV 98-1037, the excise tax imposed by SDCL § 32-5B-1 was declared invalid by this Court, the Honorable John B. Jones, in United States on behalf of Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe v. South Dakota, CIV 92-3035 (D.S.D.) (Memorandum Opinion and Order, Doc. 171, February 21, 1995).3 In January 1997, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed Judge Jones' holding that the State lacked jurisdiction to impose the excise tax on members of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe residing on the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation. United States on behalf of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe v. South Dakota, 105 F.3d 1552, 1556-58 (8th Cir.1997), cert. denied, 522 U.S. 981, 118 S.Ct. 441, 139 L.Ed.2d 378 (1997) ("Cheyenne River"). The Eighth Circuit held that a tribal member's on-reservation activities are immune from state taxation in the absence of congressional authorization and Congress has not specifically authorized the taxation of a tribal member's personal property. Id. Judge Jones denied Cheyenne River's request for monetary damages to compensate for past payments of the excise tax by tribal members in CIV 92-3035, finding that previous cases addressing state taxation of motor vehicles were not applied retroactively. (CIV 92-3035, Doc. 171 at 10-11.) The Eighth Circuit reversed Judge Jones' denial of the request for monetary damages, holding that damages were not necessarily barred. Cheyenne River, 105 F.3d at 1561. In reaching this conclusion, the Eighth Circuit recognized that a refund of state taxes paid under duress is due if the state tax is declared to be invalid either "because ... it [is] beyond the State's power to impose' or `because the taxpayers were absolutely immune from the tax.'" Id. at 1560. The case was remanded to the district court with the direction that the district court "determine whether damages should be awarded and, if so, in what amount." Following remand, Judge Jones transferred to this Court for disposition the Cheyenne River case, CIV 92-3035, and a related case, Rosebud Sioux Tribe v. Johnson, CIV 94-3039 (D.S.D.), challenging the same excise tax imposed against members of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe residing on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, which was consolidated with Cheyenne River on appeal.
[¶ 4] In the Rosebud case, the Rosebud Sioux Tribe sought declaratory and injunctive relief against the imposition of the excise tax4 on Indians residing on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation. Judge Jones did not specifically enjoin the State from collecting the excise tax from tribal members living on the reservation in the Rosebud case. The Eighth Circuit affirmed the denial of injunctive relief stating that:
In its opinion in [the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe] case, the district court denied injunctive relief since there was "no reason to believe the defendants will not comply with the requirements of this decision." Implicit in [the district court's] Rosebud ruling is a similar assumption that the state was complying with the requirements of the Cheyenne River decision and had stopped collecting excise taxes from tribal members living on reservations. Injunctive relief is unnecessary where there is no showing of irreparable harm, and nothing in the record suggests that South Dakota continues to collect the excise taxes from tribal members residing on Indian reservations.
Cheyenne River, 105 F.3d at 1562. Contrary to Judge Jones' and the Eighth Circuit's very reasonable assumptions, South Dakota continued to collect excise taxes from tribal members residing on every reservation in South Dakota except the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation following Judge Jones' February 1995 ruling in CIV 92-3035 and his May 1995 ruling in CIV 94-3039. Despite Judge Jones' May 23, 1995, ruling in the Rosebud case that it was unlawful to collect the excise tax from members of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe residing on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation, the State continued to collect excise taxes under SDCL 32-5B-1 from members of the Rosebud Sioux Tribe residing within the "closed" portion of such reservation from May 23, 1995, until March 12, 1997. Following the February 21, 1995, issuance of Judge Jones' decision in Cheyenne River, CIV 92-3035, the State took the rather outrageous position in letters to county treasurers that Cheyenne "is not good law" (a position from which the State later retreated after this Court questioned such tactics) and informed the county treasurers to continue collecting the excise tax from tribal members living on reservations, other than the Cheyenne River Reservation. The State refused the request of the Tribe in April of 1997 to exempt its members residing on the reservation from paying the excise tax. Instead, the State implemented a system on the Reservation for payment of the excise tax under protest, to be followed by a possible refund at a later time. The Tribe then brought the present lawsuit to enjoin the defendants from continuing to collect the excise tax and seeking a refund of the excise taxes paid in the past by tribal members residing on the Reservation.
[¶ 5] On May 27, 1997, the Court entered a preliminary injunction enjoining defendants from collecting the excise tax from tribal members residing on the Reservation (Order Granting Motion for Preliminary Injunction, CIV 97-1015, Doc. 12). In November of 1998, when the United States sought to intervene in CIV 97-1015 and filed CIV 98-1037 on behalf of the members of the remaining tribes in South Dakota, the United States sought preliminary injunctions in both cases. In the motions for preliminary injunctions, the United States alleged that the State had ceased collecting the excise tax from tribal members living on their reservations but continued to collect the tax from tribal members living within "Indian country" as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1151(b) and (c). The United States then acknowledged that the prior preliminary injunction in CIV 97-1015 issued on May 27, 1997, adequately protected all Standing Rock tribal members. In February of 1999, CIV 97-1015 and CIV 98-1037 were consolidated. On March 1, 1999, the Court enjoined the defendants from collecting the excise tax imposed pursuant to SDCL § 32-5B-1, et seq., from tribal members residing in Indian country as defined in 18 U.S.C. § 1151, holding that the collection of the excise tax from those tribal members under the State's "protest system" violated treaty protected rights.
[¶ 6] The State imposes the excise tax pursuant to SDCL § 32-5B-1. Failure to pay the excise tax is a Class I misdemeanor. Under South Dakota law, a Class 1 misdemeanor is punishable by a maximum of one year imprisonment in a county jail, or a fine of $ 1,000, or both. SDCL § 22-6-2(1). Except as provided by statutes not relevant to this case, the title for a motor vehicle may not be issued or transferred unless the excise tax is paid. SDCL § 32-5B-14.
[¶ 7] In its motion for partial summary judgment the Tribe requests that the Court issue an order: (1) declaring that the defendants may...
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