Lewis v. Clarke

Background

The Lewises sued a limousine driver, a tribal employee, after he rear-ended their car on a Connecticut highway while driving casino patrons. The driver worked for the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, an arm of the Mohegan Tribe that claims sovereign immunity and has an indemnity rule to cover employee liabilities in many cases. Connecticut courts split on whether tribal immunity barred a state-law negligence suit against the employee personally.

Reasoning

The Court examined whether tribal sovereign immunity prevents a person from suing a tribal employee in his individual capacity for harms caused while working, and whether the tribe’s promise to indemnify the employee makes the suit one against the tribe. The Justices applied the ordinary “real party in interest” test and concluded the lawsuit is against the individual employee, not the Tribe, so tribal immunity does not block personal-capacity damages claims. The Court added that a tribe’s voluntary indemnification cannot, as a matter of law, convert a personal suit into one that the tribe can use immunity to avoid.

Real world impact

Injured people can pursue state-law money damages against tribal employees personally for off-tribal harms, even when a tribe may later pay under an indemnity rule. Tribes still remain immune when a suit would bind the tribe itself or when officials are sued in official capacity. This decision clarifies who is the proper defendant in ordinary negligence cases involving tribal employees.

Dissents or concurrances

Two Justices wrote separately: one would rely on limits to tribal immunity for off-reservation commercial acts, and another agreed only on the indemnity point.