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U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals
SENECA NATION OF IND v STATE OF NEW YORK
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
(Argued: April 26, 1999Decided: May 17, 1999 )
Docket Nos. 99-6003, 99-6005
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SENECA NATION OF INDIANS,
Plaintiff-Appellee ,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Intervenor-Appellee ,
- v. -
STATE OF NEW YORK; GEORGE E. PATAKI, as Governor; JOSEPH SEYMOUR, as Commissioner of the Office of General Services; and BERNADETTE CASTRO, as Commissioner of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation,
Defendants-Appellants ,
FREDERICK W. TAPP, JANE E. SCHUCK, KENT SANDFORD, RICHARD J. MCCUTCHEON, BEVERLY A. MCCUTCHEON, ALBERT A. HOFFMAN, LUCY HOFFMAN, MYLES BARRACLOUGH, SANDRA BARRACLOUGH, DUANE G. GLOVER, PAUL H. GEER, VIRGINIA M. GEER, SCOTT E. FISHER, ROSEMARY N. FISHER, WILLIAM E. CAMPBELL, DAVID J. GIBSON, CLARENCE J. COFFMAN, JR., C. JAMES COFFMAN, SR., JEAN COFFMAN, EILEEN W. GARLING, ROBERT F. VAN DER HORST, SUSAN F. VAN DER HORST, JOSEPH CHIAPUSO, SUSAN CHIAPUSO, HOWARD B. WHITNEY ESTATE, DEBORAH BALDWIN, ROBERT L. JONES, EUGENIA JONES, STEPHEN M. KANE, CLARENCE J. COFFMAN, SR., HOWARD L. LUZIER, FLORENCE LUZIER, WALTER L. WHITNEY, Executor, LOUISE HICKEY, PHILLIP CONFER, SHIRLEY CONFER, DAVID C. WILLIAMS, and FRANCES E. WILLIAMS,
Defendants .
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SENECA NATION OF INDIANS,
Plaintiff-Appellee ,
TONAWANDA BAND OF SENECA INDIANS,
Plaintiff-Intervenor-Appellee ,
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, on its own behalf, and for the benefit of the Seneca Nation of Indians and the Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians,
Plaintiff-Intervenor-Appellee ,
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STATE OF NEW YORK, Individually and as a representative class of landowners similarly situated,
Defendant-Appellant ,
THE NEW YORK STATE THRUWAY AUTHORITY; ERIE COUNTY; MOORE BUSINESS FORMS, INC., Individually and as a representative of a class of landowners similarly situated; INDUCOM, INC., Individually and as a representative class of landowners similarly situated; RADO-O-MART, INC., Individually and as a representative class of landowners similarly situated; ILONA H. LANG, Individually and as a representative class of landowners similarly situated; ROBERT W. WEAVER, Individually and as a representative class of landowners similarly situated; FRANCIS B. PRITCHARD,
Defendants ,
GEORGE E. PATAKI, BERNADETTE CASTRO, RONALD W. COAN, JOHN CAHILL, JOSEPH BOARDMAN, JOHN R. PLATT,
Intervenors-Defendants .
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B E F O R E :WINTER, Chief Judge , MINER, and POOLER, Circuit Judges .
Appeal from an order denying defendants-appellants' motion for summary judgment (John T. Curtin, Judge ) and from an order denying their motion to dismiss (Richard J. Arcara, Judge ) on the ground that the claims of the Seneca Nation of Indians and the Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians are not barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Because the United States has been granted permission to intervene and the tribes' complaints seek the same relief as the United States's complaint, the Eleventh Amendment does not bar the tribes' claims. We therefore affirm.
ANDREW D. BING, Assistant Attorney General (Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York; Peter H. Schiff, Acting Solicitor General; Nancy A. Spiegel, Assistant Attorney General, of counsel), Albany, New York,
for
Defendants-Appellants
.
JEANNE S. WHITEING, Whiteing & Smith (Robert P. Isaac, Jr., Deputy Attorney General, Seneca Nation Department of Justice, Salamanca, New York; Arlinda F. Locklear, Jefferson, Maryland, of counsel), Boulder, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee .
SAMUEL C. ALEXANDER, Attorney, Environment & Natural Resources Division, U.S. Department of Justice (Lois J. Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General, Environment & Natural Resources Division, United States Department of Justice; David C. Shilton, Attorney, of counsel), Washington, D.C., for Plaintiff-Intervenor-Appellee United States of America.
Steven M. Tullberg, Indian Law Resource Center (June L. Lorenzo and Alexandra Page, of counsel), Washington, D.C., for Plaintiff-Intervenor- Appellee Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians.
PER CURIAM:
We affirm the orders of the district court denying the State of New York's Eleventh Amendment defenses for substantially the reasons stated by Judge Curtin in the decision below. See Seneca Nation of Indians v. State of New York , 26 F. Supp.2d 555, 563-65 (W.D.N.Y. 1998). In doing so, we note that the State of New York retains its Eleventh Amendment immunity to the extent that the Seneca Nation of Indians or the Tonawanda Band of Seneca Indians raise claims or issues that are not identical to those made by the United States. See Arizona v. California , 460 U.S. 605, 614 (1983) (holding that granting tribes leave to intervene in suit commenced by United States against states does not violate Eleventh Amendment because "[t]he Tribes do not seek to bring new claims or issues against the states").