Upper Skagit Tribe v. Lundgren
The Supreme Court ruled that a prior decision, County of Yakima, never actually decided whether tribes can be sued over property disputes like this one — it was only about how a 19th-century land-allotment law affected state property taxes.
Because the real question of whether tribes can claim sovereign immunity in this kind of lawsuit was never squarely addressed, the Court sent the case back to the Washington Supreme Court to consider a different argument for why the tribe might still be sued, without resolving the broader immunity question itself.
How it got here: The Washington Supreme Court ruled against the Tribe's immunity claim relying on a prior Supreme Court tax case, and the Tribe asked the Supreme Court to review that ruling.
The Case in Depth
What happened
The Upper Skagit Tribe bought about 40 acres of land, hoping to add it to its reservation, and had it surveyed. The survey showed a boundary fence was misplaced, putting roughly an acre on the wrong side, on land the Tribe's neighbors, Sharline and Ray Lundgren, believed was theirs. When the Tribe said it would move the fence, the Lundgrens sued to settle who owned the land, and the Tribe claimed it could not be sued at all because of tribal sovereign immunity.
The question before the Court
Could a Native American tribe be sued to settle a boundary dispute over land it bought, or did tribal sovereign immunity block the lawsuit entirely?
Why it matters
Tribes, landowners, and lower courts across the country have been divided over whether tribes can invoke sovereign immunity to block lawsuits over land boundaries. This decision clears up one point of confusion (an old tax case doesn't answer the question) but leaves the core issue of tribal immunity in property disputes unresolved for now, meaning uncertainty continues for neighbors near tribal land.
What changes now
The case goes back to the Washington Supreme Court, which must now decide whether a long-standing rule — that sovereigns cannot claim immunity over land they own like private individuals — defeats the Tribe's immunity claim here. The broader question of whether tribes generally have immunity from property lawsuits remains unresolved nationally, and other courts may continue to split on it until a future case addresses it directly.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether Indian tribes can claim sovereign immunity in lawsuits over land ownership generally. It only decided that a prior tax case, Yakima, doesn't answer that question, leaving the specific 'immovable property' argument raised by the neighbors for the Washington Supreme Court to resolve on remand.
Concurrences and dissents
Concurrence — Justice Roberts
Chief Justice Roberts joined the majority in full but wrote separately to flag a practical problem: if tribes can always claim immunity, ordinary neighbors like the Lundgrens may have no way to ever resolve a boundary dispute. He criticized both the Tribe's suggestion to just negotiate and the government's suggestion that the Lundgrens provoke a lawsuit by trespassing on the land, calling neither a real remedy, and said the immovable-property question will need to be addressed eventually.
Dissent — Justice Thomas
Justice Thomas argued the Court should have simply resolved the immovable-property exception itself rather than sending it back, since it was thoroughly briefed and argued and is, in his view, well-settled 'hornbook law' that applies to tribes just as it does to states and foreign nations. He argued the remand needlessly delays relief for the Lundgrens and leaves lower courts without guidance on the underlying immunity dispute that prompted review.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court examined what its earlier decision, County of Yakima, actually decided. That case involved the Indian General Allotment Act of 1887, a law that once let the President give tribal land to individual members, who would eventually receive full private ownership (a 'fee patent').
- The Court explained that once tribal members held fee-patented land, a specific provision of that 1887 law made them subject to state law, including taxes. In an earlier case, Moe, the Court had ruled the government couldn't use that provision to let states impose person-to-person taxes, like cigarette sales taxes, between tribal members on such land.
- In County of Yakima, the Court had reached a different result for property taxes (a tax tied to the land itself, called an 'in rem' tax, rather than a tax on a person, called 'in personam'), holding states could still collect those under the same 1887 law provision.
- Because Yakima was purely about interpreting that old tax provision and never mentioned sovereign immunity, the Court concluded the Washington Supreme Court was wrong to treat Yakima as establishing that tribal immunity does not apply to lawsuits over land ownership.
- The Lundgrens then raised a new argument — that a longstanding rule lets sovereigns be sued over land they own like private owners, wherever that land sits — but because this argument arose only very late in the case, after full briefing on other issues, the Court declined to decide it in the first instance.
- The Court concluded that the proper course was to let the Washington Supreme Court address this newly raised property-ownership argument on remand, rather than resolve on its own whether it defeats the Tribe's immunity claim.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Distinguishes County of Yakima v. Confederated Tribes and Bands of Yakima Nation (502 U. S. 251)
Clarifies that Yakima only interpreted an old land-allotment tax statute and never addressed tribal sovereign immunity.