United States Tenth Circuit

In a long-running dispute over the Secretary of the Interior's 1996 decision to take a tract of land in downtown Kansas City into trust for the benefit of the Wyandotte Tribe of Oklahoma, which intends to operate a casino on the property, a judgment affirming the trust status of the land is vacated where: 1) the waiver of sovereign immunity provided by Congress in the Quiet Title Act no longer applied to any action challenging the United States' title to the Tract, because the Tract was already held by the United States in trust; and 2) without such waiver, the district court lacked jurisdiction to entertain any challenge to the Secretary's decision.

Appellate Information

• Decided 10/24/2007
• Published 10/25/2007

Judges

• Before BRISCOE, EBEL, and HARTZ, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Mark S. Gunnison of Payne & Jones, Chartered, Overland Park, Kansas (Stephen D. McGiffert, Payne & Jones, Chartered, Overland Park, Kansas;  Thomas Weathers and Meredith D. Drent, Alexander, Berkey, Williams & Weathers LLP, Berkeley, California;  Steven D. Alexander, Assistant Attorney General for the State of Kansas;  Steven O. Phillips, Assistant Attorney General for the State of Kansas;  Amelia C. Holmes, Horton, Kansas, with him on the brief), for Plaintiffs-Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Allen M. Brabender, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C. (Lisa Jones, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.;  Eric F. Melgren, United States Attorney and Jackie A. Rapstine, Assistant United States Attorney, Topeka, Kansas;  Sue Ellen Wooldridge, Assistant United States Attorney General, Washington, D.C., with him on the brief), for Defendants-Appellees.