Campo Band of Mission Indians v. Superior Court

In Campo Band of Mission Indians v. Superior Court (2006) 137 Cal.App.4th 175, the Campo Band of Mission Indians (the tribe) entered into a compact with the State of California requiring it to adopt a tort liability ordinance. (Id. at p. 178.) The tribe adopted an ordinance which required an injured patron to make a request for arbitration after exhausting the claims process with the tribe and its insurance carrier. (Id. at pp. 179-180.) The ordinance stated that in the event the tribe granted a request for arbitration "and the patron is successful in obtaining an arbitration award, the Tribe . . . consents to waive its sovereign immunity from suit for the limited and sole purpose of enforcing the arbitration award" on the condition, among others, that "the suit must be an action to enforce the arbitration award and the relief sought is limited to specific performance." (Id. at p. 179.) Under the ordinance, because there was not an available tribal adjudicatory forum, a suit to enforce the arbitration award was to be brought in San Diego County Superior Court. (Ibid.) After the tribe rejected the plaintiff's claim for arbitration of her personal injury claim on the ground it was untimely and procedurally noncompliant, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit in superior court along with a motion to compel arbitration of her claim, and the tribe filed a motion to dismiss on the ground of sovereign immunity. (Id. at pp. 180-181.) The trial court granted the motion to compel arbitration. (Id. at p. 181.) In reviewing that decision on a petition for a writ of mandate, we held in Campo that by virtue of the language in the tribe's compact with the State of California and its tort liability ordinance, the state courts had jurisdiction over the tribe to issue an order compelling the tribe to participate in an arbitration: (1) to determine whether plaintiff had followed the procedural requirements for requesting an arbitration, and; (2) if so, to submit plaintiff's personal injury claim to arbitration. (Id. at pp. 183-186.)