Gov’t Says Ariz. Agency Can’t Sue In Tribal Water Row
Law360
The federal government on Thursday urged a federal judge to throw out a complaint against it from an Arizona water district in an Ak-Chin Indian Community suit accusing the district of refusing to deliver all of the water to which the tribe is entitled to its reservation, saying that its sovereign immunity was never waived.
The U.S. Department of the Interior, the Bureau of Reclamation and several federal officials moved to dismiss a third-party complaint that the Central Arizona Water Conservation District filed in April to join the United States as a necessary party defendant in a water rights suit between the district and the Ak-Chin. The federal government said the complaint against it should be dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because Congress never waived the government’s sovereign immunity and that the district’s arguments for such a waiver fail.
“Even if the court finds that Congress has waived sovereign immunity for suit against the United States alone, the court should dismiss the two departments and four defendants named in their official capacities because Congress has not waived their sovereign immunity and no legitimate purpose is served by their inclusion in this case,” the federal government said in its dismissal bid.
