Certain things are sure to happen to some of the tens of thousands of people expected to stream into the Graton Resort & Casino after it opens later this year.
Someone will slip and fall in the casino. Someone will have a fender bender in the 5,500-vehicle parking garage. Someone in the poker room will claim to have been cheated. Someone will have their cell phone stolen or, perhaps, be punched in a fight.
Whether they take place in the casino or outside it, all such events will occur in Indian Country that is largely exempt from state laws, on the 254-acre Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria reservation, just outside Rohnert Park.
How will such conflicts be resolved? Through a complex mesh of arrangements fashioned by the state and tribe within the framework of federal laws.
Tribal sovereignty, under which tribes are self-governing, is the essential factor defining the arrangements about how such disputes are resolved.
"It's not just a claim," said Howard Dickstein, a Sacramento attorney who represents Indian tribes, speaking of legal disputes that arise on reservations involving casino patrons.
An Indian casino is "not just a private business, it's a governmental entity that's operating a business," said Dickstein, whose clients include the United Auburn Indian Community, which runs the Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln.
"It's a unique area of personal injury law in California," said David Coffman, a Laguna Niguel attorney whose practice includes major personal injury cases involving Indian casinos.
Two federal laws shape the application of state laws in Indian Country when it comes to the types of dispute that generally arise in Indian casinos or surrounding reservations.
First is the 1953 law, Public Law 280, which made California one of five states in which the state has criminal jurisdiction over Indian Country.
Second is the 1988 Indian Gaming Regulatory Act, or IGRA, in which Congress set the legal framework for how, when and where Indian gambling is allowed.
Public Law 280 answers the question of what happens in a criminal event on a reservation — if a casino patron gets in a fistfight with an employee and one party is injured, for example, or if a gambler steals from the casino or another patron.
"The sheriff has jurisdiction over crimes," said Dickstein. And cases in which charges are filed would proceed through the normal court channels, starting at county superior courts.
But the other type of case that most often arises in casinos is not criminal. That would be civil personal injury cases; for example, the case of a gambler falling on a casino's steps, breaking a hip, and alleging the steps were unsafe.
The way such cases are settled was shaped by IGRA, which forced tribes to negotiate agreements with states in order to open Nevada-style casinos.
That has led to a distribution of authority between the state and tribes in the way tort cases involving casino patrons on reservations are resolved.
Tribes, because of their sovereign status, are guaranteed a significant role in adjudicating personal injury disputes involving their casinos.
The state does not play a role in resolving such disputes. But since 2003, the state has required tribes with Nevada-style casinos to establish ordinances applying California law to such cases.
The Graton Rancheria's agreement with the state is typical, Indian law attorneys said, in how it lays out the process to resolve personal injury civil cases.
First, the ordinance allows the tribe to require that people pressing a claim submit to the tribe's own administrative process, in which tribal officials or people they appoint would judge the claim.
But also, as required by the state, the tribe must partially waive its sovereignty to allow the person making the claim the right to appeal the tribal judgement to an independent, non-tribal arbitrator.
"From the sovereignty standpoint, there is a bargain," said Jack Duran, a Roseville Indian law attorney who is a general counsel for tribes in California and nationwide, but does not represent the Graton Rancheria.
"In order for the tribes to game here in California, they need to understand that the state is going to be tugging on this to make sure its interests in its citizens are going to be taken care of," said Duran.
Courts have ruled that tribes have not, simply by agreeing to enter arbitration proceedings, waived their immunity to being sued in state court if a plaintiff is unhappy with an arbitrator's decision.
Despite, or perhaps because of, the arbitration requirement, about 80 percent of such cases are resolved within tribal process, said Dickstein.
One exception to the ordinance, said Coffman, would be a fender-bender or something similar.
"That would be just like any other accident that took place anywhere else. Such a matter would be handled by the insurance companies applying state law," he said. "Where the difference comes into play is when the tribe or casino is the responsible party."
The laws governing civil cases involving casino-related disputes apply equally to members of the non-Indian public, Indians who are not tribal members, and tribal members.
"The ordinance is the ordinance, irrespective of whether the person is a tribal member or not," Duran said.
You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 521-5212 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com.
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