“This agreement concludes a lengthy legal dispute that may have lasted several more years,” Ryan Jarvi, press secretary for the Michigan Department of Attorney General, said in an email to Tribal Business News. District Court, where both sides have remained in dispute.

Supreme Court, which said in a 5-4 decision in 2014 that the tribe’s sovereign immunity protected it from the state’s lawsuit.

Questions posed by that case eventually wound up before the U.S. The state of Michigan sued the tribe, alleging that the casino operation was a violation of the federal Indian Gaming Regulatory Act and the tribe’s gaming compact with the state. Its goal with the gaming facility was to “provide new economic opportunities for the Tribe, its citizens and partner communities.” The law said land that the tribes acquired with the funds “shall be held as Indian lands are held,” which Bay Mills argued cleared the way for gaming on the Vanderbilt site, where it opened a small casino in 2010. government to the tribes when their lands were ceded under treaties in the 1800s. The law, enacted in 1997, provided Michigan tribes with judgment funds to make up for the low fees paid by the U.S. The competing lawsuits stemmed from Bay Mills Indian Community opening a casino on land it purchased in Vanderbilt, Mich., about 100 miles south of its reservation in the eastern Upper Peninsula of Michigan.īay Mills argued that its use of certain trust funds to acquire the land, as spelled out in provisions in the Michigan Indian Land Claims Settlement Act, permitted the tribe to operate a casino on the property. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, the state said both parties “stipulate and agree to a voluntary dismissal, without prejudice and without costs or attorneys’ fees.” In exchange for the tribe dropping its case, the state of Michigan also agreed to dismiss its decade-long lawsuit against the tribe.

Upper michigan casino