ELR Citation: ELR 20741
No(s). 00-2265 (1st Cir. Jun 20, 2001)

The court dismisses on res judicata grounds Native American tribes' claim that they did not have to provide pulp and paper mills with documents concerning the tribes' regulation under the Clean Water Act of the mills' wastewater discharge into rivers flowing through the tribes' reservations. After the mills requested the documents from the tribes under the Maine Access Act, the tribes brought suit in federal court to prevent disclosure, claiming that state and federal law precluded state regulation of internal tribal matters and that applying the Maine Access Act as sought by the mills would impermissibly regulate the tribes' internal affairs. The mills brought suit in state court to enforce disclosure. The federal district court responded first and held that it lacked jurisdiction to hear the case because the case did not arise under federal law. The state court ruled on the merits of the case and held that the tribes had to provide the mills with the requested documents because the demand for the documents did not contravene the internal affairs limitation. On appeal, the state supreme court held that the internal affairs limit did protect the tribes from having to produce documents reflecting the internal deliberations about the wastewater issue, but not from turning over any correspondence between the tribes and federal agencies on that issue under the Maine Access Act.

The court holds that any further proceedings in the federal district court are controlled by res judicata and would be pointlessly duplicative. Although the issue of whether the tribes' claim arises under federal law is a difficult question, the answer is now irrelevant because the state supreme court decided the merits of the underlying dispute. Where pending state and federal court suits involve the same underlying dispute, res judicata principles usually give the race to the first court to decide the merits. Here, the state supreme court decided the case on the merits, and, therefore, precludes the federal court case.

Counsel for Appellants
Kaighn Smith Jr.
Drummond, Woodsum & MacMahon
245 Commercial St., Portland ME 04104
(207) 772-1941

Counsel for Appellees
Catherine R. Connors
Pierce, Atwood, Scribner, Allen, Smith & Lancaster
One Monument Sq., Portland ME 04101
(207) 773-6411

Boudin, J. Before Stahl and Lynch, JJ.