444
Opinion of the Court
claim. Together, Fredericks and her children sought damages exceeding $13 million. App. 8-10.
Respondents and the insurer made a special appearance in the Tribal Court to contest that court's personal and subject-matter jurisdiction. The Tribal Court ruled that it had authority to adjudicate Gisela Fredericks' case, and therefore denied respondents' motion to dismiss the action. Id., at 24-25.3 Respondents appealed the Tribal Court's jurisdictional ruling to the Northern Plains Intertribal Court of Appeals, which affirmed. Id., at 36. Thereafter, pursuant to the parties' stipulation, the Tribal Court dismissed the insurer from the suit. See id., at 38-40.
Before Tribal Court proceedings resumed, respondents commenced this action in the United States District Court for the District of North Dakota. Naming as defendants Fredericks, her adult children, the Tribal Court, and Tribal Judge William Strate, respondents sought a declaratory judgment that, as a matter of federal law, the Tribal Court lacked jurisdiction to adjudicate Fredericks' claims. The respondents also sought an injunction against further proceedings in the Tribal Court. See id., at 41-45.
Relying particularly on this Court's decisions in National Farmers Union Ins. Cos. v. Crow Tribe, 471 U. S. 845 (1985), and Iowa Mut. Ins. Co. v. LaPlante, 480 U. S. 9 (1987), the District Court determined that the Tribal Court had civil jurisdiction over Fredericks' complaint against A-1 Contractors and Stockert; accordingly, on cross-motions for summary judgment, the District Court dismissed the action. App. 54-67. On appeal, a divided panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. App. 68- 90. The Eighth Circuit granted rehearing en banc and, in an 8-to-4 decision, reversed the District Court's judgment.
3 Satisfied that it could adjudicate Gisela Fredericks' claims, the Tribal Court declined to address her adult children's consortium claim, App. 25; thus, no ruling on that claim is here at issue.
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