Indian Courts
We should clarify the nature of Tribal Sovereignty. It is often said that �you can�t bring a suit because of tribal sovereignty�. You can bring a suit, you just have to bring it before a Tribal Court. I don�t why people find this surprising.
If I drive into Ohio and have an auto accident with a n Ohio person, I don�t think I can sue them here in a Michigan court. I think I have to go an Ohio court.. It is the same with a reservation.
Some probably see alack of checks and blatancies when dealing with Indian casinos, because the Tribal government runs the casinos. OK, not the best situation. But is that a lot worse than in Nevada, where the casinos own the government?
The mentioned a case:
* A 65-year-old Visalia woman was accidentally crushed by a 350-pound gambler at an Indian casino near Lemoore. It took her a month to walk with crutches, and 18 confusing months to collect a settlement from the tribe.
I don�t think it is unusual to have to wait 18m months for a settlement outside of Indian territory? The fact that she got a settlement suggests that the system was working.
There were some other cases where people won judgments in California courts, but could not enforce them. Duh! Doesn�t everybody know that you can�t collect on a state judgment against an Indian tribe. What lawyer brought this action? Seems to me like they have a strong malpractice claim against that lawyer.
The overall impression conveyed by the article is that the tribes are abusing Tribal sovereignty. This may be true. It is hard for me to get a handle on he scale of the problem. I don�t know if there is just some cheating on the margins, or if the whole system is broke.
Ultimately though, if Tribal Sovereignty fails, and if the tribes do not live up to their responsibility, Congress can take legislative action. The limiting of tribal sovereignty. The loss of Sovereignty will hurt the Indians a lot more than any short term gain they are getting from this abuse.
I don�t know a lot about the situation in California, but it sounds to me like some of these problems could be fixed by sate legislation. However, the state is probably very dependent on casino revenues, and not likely to take action against the tribes. In my state, one of the tribes was a huge political contributor, and practically owned a chunk of the state legislature.