Schwarzenegger

MEMORANDUM *

The Rincon Band of Luiseno Mission Indians (“Rincon”) brought this action against the governor of California 1 (“the State”) seeking, inter alia, reliance damages and a declaratory judgment regarding the aggregate maximum number of slot machine licenses available to Indian tribes in California who were parties to approximately 60 essentially identical Indian Gaming Compacts between those tribes and the State. The district court dismissed several of Rincon’s claims, including these two. It dismissed the declaratory judgment action for failure to join all other tribes with similar compacts, who were subject to the same licensing pool, as required parties under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19. It dismissed the claim for damages as barred by the Eleventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. A partial final judgment was entered on the dismissed claims pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). Rincon brings this appeal to challenge the dismissal of the declaratory judgment and reliance damage claims. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm in part and reverse in part.

We review for abuse of discretion a dismissal under Rule 19 for…