## Facts

- The Spokane Tribe operated a bingo hall and limited card games and sought to expand into class III casino-style gaming on its reservation.
- Under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA), class III gaming generally requires a tribal–state compact.
- The Tribe negotiated with the State of Washington for a compact, but negotiations collapsed after roughly two years.
- The Tribe sued Washington in federal court under IGRA, alleging the state failed to negotiate in good faith.
- While that suit was pending, the Tribe expanded gaming operations without a compact, offering additional class III games.
- The United States brought an IGRA enforcement action and obtained a preliminary injunction from the Eastern District of Washington barring most of the Tribe’s gaming.
- After the injunction issued, the Supreme Court held in *Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida* that states have Eleventh Amendment immunity from IGRA suits alleging failure to negotiate in good faith, and Washington invoked that immunity to terminate the Tribe’s suit.
- The Tribe took an interlocutory appeal from the preliminary injunction.

## Issues

1. Whether, after *Seminole Tribe* eliminated tribes’ federal-court remedy to compel state good-faith compact negotiations, IGRA’s remaining class III enforcement provisions could still support a preliminary injunction against a tribe for operating class III gaming without a compact.
2. Whether IGRA’s severability clause permits continued application of the class III enforcement scheme in a manner that effectively leaves tribes without a statutory path to obtain a compact when a state refuses to negotiate.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction and remanded.
- The court held that, in the post-*Seminole Tribe* setting, the class III gaming framework could not be applied to support the injunction as issued.
- The court declined to preserve the prior enforcement balance through a judicially improvised substitute for the invalidated tribal remedy and indicated further proceedings would be required if the United States pursued additional relief.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory severability does not necessarily allow courts to apply remaining provisions in a way that defeats the statute’s intended remedial balance when a key component is rendered unenforceable by constitutional limits.
- IGRA’s class III structure was enacted as an interdependent scheme: states gained a role through compacts, and tribes were given leverage through a federal good-faith negotiation action; removing that tribal remedy materially changes how the remaining enforcement provisions operate.
- When a constitutional decision alters a statute’s operation, equitable relief premised on the prior, intact structure may be improper without reassessing whether the remaining provisions function as Congress contemplated.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit vacated the federal preliminary injunction against the Spokane Tribe’s class III gaming because *Seminole Tribe* eliminated tribes’ ability to sue states for bad-faith compact negotiations, upsetting IGRA’s intended enforcement balance and undermining reliance on the class III enforcement provisions in their pre-*Seminole* form.


United States v. Spokane Tribe of Indians, 139 F.3d 1297 (9th Cir. 1998)