United States Ninth Circuit

In a railroad's suit against two tribal officials seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against their efforts to enforce or collect the tribe's possessory interest tax against it for use of the railroad's right-of-way through the reservation, denial of tribal officials' motion to dismiss is affirmed in part and reversed in part where: 1) denial of a tribal sovereign immunity claim is appealable on an interlocutory basis as a collateral order; 2) tribal sovereign immunity does not bar suit against one official who was allegedly responsible for enforcing the tax at issue; but 3) the other official has no alleged enforcement responsibilities to actually collect the tax.

Appellate Information

• Argued 10/16/2007
• Decided 12/07/2007
• Published 12/07/2007

Judges

• TALLMAN, Circuit Judge:, Before:  ARTHUR L. ALARCÓN, DAVID R. THOMPSON, and RICHARD C. TALLMAN, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Susan M. Williams (argued), Sarah S. Works, Williams & Works, P.A., Corrales, NM, for the appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Charles G. Cole (argued), Alice E. Loughran, Amber B. Blaha, Steptoe & Johnson LLP, Washington, DC;  Paul J. Mooney, Jim L. Wright, Fennemore Craig, P.C., Phoenix, AZ, for the appellee.