John C. Cardin v. Joseph B. De La Cruz

This is an appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington enjoining appellants, officers of the Quinault Indian Tribe [“the Tribe”], from enforcing tribal building, health, and safety regulations against appellee. Appellee, a non-Indian, owns land within the Quinault Reservation on which he operates a store that allegedly violates tribal regulations. The district court enjoined enforcement of these regulations against appellee after concluding, in light of Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe, 435 U.S. 191 , 98 S.Ct. 1011 , 55 L.Ed.2d 209 (1978), that the Tribe lacked jurisdiction to enforce its regulations against a non-Indian on land he owned in fee. For the reasons explained below, we disagree and accordingly reverse.

BACKGROUND

Appellee, plaintiff below, is a non-Indian who owns a thirty-acre tract in the village of Queets in Jefferson County, Washington, located within the boundaries of the Quinault Indian Reservation. On the tract, which has been owned in fee by non-Indians since 1928, is the village’s only grocery and general store. Even before appellee purchased the tract in October 1978, the Tribe had urged the store’s…