concluding that tribe’s constitution required that tribe’s business committee pass resolutions to expressly consent to a waiver of immunity, but resolutions at issue only authorized the chief to enter employment contracts and did not authorize waiver of immunity
How later courts described this case
- concluding that tribe’s constitution required that tribe’s business committee pass resolutions to expressly consent to a waiver of immunity, but resolutions at issue only authorized the chief to enter employment contracts and did not authorize waiver of immunity
- rejecting equitable theories as basis for waiver; where tribal council authorized Chief to execute contracts, but not waive immunity, express waivers in those contracts were not effective
- the tribe's constitution and a resolution passed by its business committee explained how authority to waive could be conferred
- “[T]ribal law controls the way sovereign immunity can be waived by the Tribe.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
Distinguished
Distinguished by WELLS FARGO BANK v. APACHE TRIBE OF OKLAHOMA, 2015 OK CIV APP 10 (2014)
Dilliner, however, is distinguishable in one respect.
The opinion
1 24 TAYLOR, C.J.,
dissenting.
There is a waiver of sovereign immunity that has now become inconvenient to the tribe. The tribe now wants to back out of an agreement it made with its own employees. After examining all the cireumstances of this case, it is my view that sovereign immunity has been waived.