Nevada v. Hicks, 533 U.S. 353, 16 (2001)

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368

NEVADA v. HICKS

Opinion of the Court

tion homeowners). But no provision in federal law provides for tribal-court jurisdiction over § 1983 actions.

Furthermore, tribal-court jurisdiction would create serious anomalies, as the Government recognizes, because the general federal-question removal statute refers only to removal from state court, see 28 U. S. C. § 1441. Were § 1983 claims cognizable in tribal court, defendants would inexplicably lack the right available to state-court § 1983 defendants to seek a federal forum. The Government thinks the omission of reference to tribal courts in § 1441 unproblematic. Since, it argues, "[i]t is doubtful . . . that Congress intended to deny tribal court defendants the right given state court defendants to elect a federal forum for the adjudication of causes of action under federal law," we should feel free to create that right by permitting the tribal-court defendant to obtain a federal-court injunction against the action, effectively forcing it to be refiled in federal court. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 25-26. The sole support for devising this extraordinary remedy is El Paso Natural Gas Co. v. Neztsosie, 526 U. S. 473 (1999), where we approved a similar procedure with regard to claims under the Price-Anderson Act brought in tribal court. In Neztsosie, however, the claims were not initially federal claims, but Navajo tort claims that the Price-Anderson Act provided "shall be deemed to be . . . action[s] arising under" 42 U. S. C. § 2210; there was little doubt that the tribal court had jurisdiction over such tort claims, see 526 U. S., at 482, n. 4. And for the propriety of the injunction in Neztsosie, we relied not on § 1441, but on the removal provision of the Price-Anderson Act, 42 U. S. C. § 2210(n)(2). Although, like § 1441, that provision referred only to removal from state courts, in light of the Act's detailed and distinctive provisions for the handling of "nuclear incident" cases in federal court, see 526 U. S., at 486, we thought it clear Congress envisioned the defendant's ability to get into federal court in all in-

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