Jan. 16—The state Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled personal injury lawsuits against New Mexico tribal casinos cannot be brought in state court — a landmark decision that settles a long-running dispute over jurisdiction in such cases.

In a unanimous opinion — handed down in a case involving an employee of an electrical company who sought damages for injuries he said he received while making a delivery to Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino in 2014 — the state’s highest court concluded state courts no longer have the authority to decide bodily injury and property damages lawsuits filed by casino visitors.

The decision leaves such cases to be decided in tribal courts or through arbitration and was hailed by Pojoaque Pueblo, which owns Buffalo Thunder.

“The Pueblo of Pojoaque is very happy to receive this important ruling which properly ends tribal gaming tort-claims jurisdiction-shifting to New Mexico state courts,” pueblo Gov. Jenelle Roybal wrote in an email statement sent by attorney Daniel Rey-Bear.

“This decision vindicates the sovereign authority of all Indian Pueblos and Nations in New Mexico and confirms that the State is bound by its gaming compact with us. We look forward to implementation of this decision going forward,” Roybal wrote in the statement. “The Pueblo continues to provide safe and welcoming gaming facilities for all, as well as remedies for our visitors who claim bodily injury or property damages caused by our gaming enterprises.”

A provision in gaming compacts hammered out between the state and tribal governments decades ago had included a clause that waived tribal sovereign immunity to allow jurisdiction to be moved from tribal court to state court for some damage claims. But the language of the compacts left the door open for the so-called “visitor protection provision” to be terminated if a state or federal court determined the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act prohibited such jurisdictional shifting.

Tuesday’s opinion concluded federal court rulings in 2013 and 2018 in two cases involving New Mexico Indian tribes had triggered the termination clause.

The court stopped short of providing an opinion on whether the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act —the 1988 federal law that made wide-scale gambling possible on Native land — prohibited jurisdictional shifting in all circumstances.

The opinion, authored by New Mexico Supreme Court Chief Justice C. Shannon Bacon, emphasized the ruling was based on reviewing the gambling compacts as contracts and determined only whether previous rulings had qualified as final for the purpose of triggering termination of the visitor protection provision.

The court’s decision reversed a state Court of Appeals decision that would have permitted Jeremiah Sipp, also known as Sage Rader, and his wife, Hella Rader, to proceed with a lawsuit in state court against Buffalo Thunder Inc., Pojoaque Pueblo and other tribal enterprises.

Sipp’s claim said he was moving in and out of a receiving area when a Buffalo Thunder employee suddenly lowered a large, electric garage-type door as he was in the entryway. The door struck Sipp in the head with such force he was knocked unconscious. He suffered severe head and spinal injures that required surgery, according to his complaint.

The couple’s attorney Timothy White declined to comment.

Richard Hughes, a Santa Fe attorney who had filed an amicus brief in the case on behalf of Santa Ana and Santa Clara pueblos, called the ruling “hugely important.”

“It’s quite climactic,” Hughes said in a phone interview. “We’ve been litigating this issue for about 20 years and it’s highly gratifying to finally get the state courts to acknowledge the right result.”

Hughes said Tuesday the ruling is likely to be “the final word” in this case because the state Supreme Court decided the issue based only on an interpretation of state law.

“That’s a good thing,” he said. “If they had gone ahead and interpreted the language of [the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act], that would have been an issue the plaintiffs could have tried to take to the federal Supreme Court.”

The ruling likely will bring long-awaited clarity to the jurisdictional issue and may result in a number of cases pending in state District Courts being dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

Hughes said his firm had two cases pending in the state Court of Appeals on the issue “and this decision should put an end to both of those cases.”

Hughes said Tuesday the ruling likely will result in many plaintiffs opting to have their cases decided through arbitration — as allowed under the compacts — rather than in tribal courts, due to “an unfair but strong bias against tribal courts.”

“Lawyers don’t want to argue in tribal court, which is why they fought so hard to get [the visitor protection provisions] included in the compacts,” he said. “They figure tribal courts are going to always rule against them or that they won’t get good damages. These are unfair and untrue beliefs, but that’s what we deal with.”

Hughes said the court’s ruling reaffirms the concepts of a 1959 opinion handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court that determined tribes should be “entitled to make their own laws and be ruled by them and have their own courts determine the propriety of their behavior.”

Attorneys David J. Stout and Michael B. Browde, who had filed an amicus brief on behalf of the New Mexico Trial Lawyers Association contending the state Supreme Court should affirm state courts’ jurisdiction over the cases, did not respond to messages seeking comment.