Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community
United States Supreme Court
134 S. Ct. 2024 (2014)
Under a 1993 compact and the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), Michigan (plaintiff) permitted the Bay Mills Indian Community (defendant) to operate gaming on its reservation but not on land owned by Michigan; neither party waived sovereign immunity in the compact. In 2010, Bay Mills opened a casino on land it claimed as tribal ancestral land but which Michigan considered state land. Michigan sued in federal court under the compact and IGRA to enjoin the casino, and the district court issued a preliminary injunction closing it; the Sixth Circuit reversed on interlocutory appeal, holding tribal sovereign immunity barred the suit, and the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari.
Whether an Indian tribe is immune from suit by a state for the tribe's commercial gaming activities conducted on land that is not Indian land.