FILED
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
DEC 14 2015
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
HOPLAND BAND OF POMO INDIANS; No. 14-15112
et al.,
D.C. No. 3:12-cv-00556-CRB
Plaintiffs - Appellants,
v. MEMORANDUM *
SALLY JEWELL, Secretary of the United
States Department of the Interior; et al.,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Charles R. Breyer, Senior District Judge, Presiding
Submitted December 10, 2015**
San Francisco, California
Before: O’SCANNLAIN, SILVERMAN, and BEA, Circuit Judges.
The Hopland Band of Pomo Indians and four other tribes (collectively “the
Tribes”) appeal the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
Secretary of the Interior and other Bureau of Indian Affairs (“BIA”) officials
(collectively “the Secretary”) in the Tribes’ action challenging the BIA’s declination
of their proposed Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act (“ISDA”)
contracts for law enforcement services, also referred to as a “638 contracts” after the
Public Law enacted by the ISDA, Pub. L. No. 93-638, 88 Stat. 2203 (1975) (codified
as amended in scattered sections of 5, 25, 42 and 50 U.S.C.). We have jurisdiction
over the appeal under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Reviewing the district court’s grant of
summary judgment in favor of the Secretary de novo, Swoger v. Rare Coin
Wholesalers, 803 F.3d 1045, 1047 (9th Cir. 2015), we affirm.
The district court did not err in concluding that this court’s opinion in Los
Coyotes Band of Cahuilla & Cupeño Indians v. Jewell, 729 F.3d 1025 (9th Cir. 2013),
controls here. Seven of the eight causes of action asserted by the Tribes present the
same substantive arguments presented by the Los Coyotes tribe and decided by this
court in Los Coyotes. This court’s ruling that the BIA properly denied the Los
Coyotes tribe’s request for a new 638 law enforcement contract pursuant to 25 U.S.C.
§ 450f(a)(2)(D), id. at 1035–38, forecloses the Tribes’ claims that assert violations of
the ISDA. Los Coyotes’s holding that the BIA’s decisions regarding the allocation of
its limited funds for law enforcement involve an exercise of agency discretion that is
not reviewable, id. at 1038–39, similarly forecloses the Tribes’ claims pursuant to the
2
APA. Finally, this court’s holding that the Secretary of the Interior had provided, and
the Los Coyotes tribe had not rebutted, rational bases for the BIA’s approach to
allocating law enforcement funds among Public Law 280 and non-Public Law 280
states,1 id. at 1039–40, forecloses the Tribes’ equal protection challenges.
Moreover, the district court did not err in rejecting the Tribes’ Indian trust
doctrine claim. The Tribes’ claim of a violation of the Indian trust doctrine relies on
statutes that expressly recognize the BIA’s responsibility to provide or to assist in the
provision of law enforcement services in Indian country and to administer the ISDA
contract program in furtherance of the tribal self determination. Nothing in the
statutory language is, however, reasonably read to impose on the United States a
specific fiduciary obligation to approve the Tribes’ contract applications or to allocate
funding for law enforcement in California or other Public Law 280 states. See Gros
Ventre Tribe v. United States, 469 F.3d 801, 810–11 (9th Cir. 2006). Therefore, the
district court correctly granted summary judgment in favor of the Secretary.
1
In 1953, Congress enacted Public Law 83-280 (“P.L. 280”), which transferred
to six states, including California (“P.L. 280 States”), “jurisdiction over offenses
committed by or against Indians in the areas of Indian country. . .” Act of Aug. 15,
1953, Pub. L. No. 83-280, § 2, 67 Stat. 588 (codified as amended at 18 U.S.C. §
1162(a)-(c)).
3
AFFIRMED.
4