Vaughn

The Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF) brought suit against two officials of the Hualapai Indian Tribe, Charles Vaughn and Wanda Easter (the tribal officials), seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against their efforts to enforce or collect the Hualapai Tribe’s pos-sessory interest tax against BNSF for use of the railroad’s right-of-way through the reservation. The tribal officials filed a motion to dismiss, which the district court denied. The tribal officials bring this appeal.

We address the novel jurisdictional question w’hether, under Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Carp., 337 U.S. 541 , 69 S.Ct. 1221 , 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949), denial of a tribal sovereign immunity claim is appealable on an interlocutory basis as a collateral order. We hold that it is and proceed to review the district court’s ruling on the merits. We affirm the district court’s ruling that tribal sovereign immunity does not bar suit against Easter, who is allegedly responsible for enforcing the tax at issue in this suit, but reverse with regard to Vaughn, the Tribe’s Chairman, who has no alleged enforcement responsibilities to actually collect the tax. The tribal officials also…