Taking a narrow view of tribal sovereign immunity, the Court of Appeals faulted the Pueblo for not providing “evidence of any property or governance interests whatsoever in the road or that the road, concededly a state public road, would threaten or otherwise affect its sovereignty.” The Court relied on Supreme Court cases involving tribal authority over non-members—which hold a tribe does not have regulatory or adjudicatory jurisdiction over, inter alia, state roads within the outer boundaries of a reservation—to equate the Pueblo’s assertion of sovereign immunity with the Pueblo’s attempt “to assert control over a state public road, yet to deprive Hamaatsa, or any other member of the public, any opportunity for legal recourse.”

The Court found that the assertion of sovereign immunity in a motion to dismiss improper because it would prevent any person from invoking state court jurisdiction in a dispute with a tribe. The Court also relied on minority opinions of the United States Supreme Court that questioned the utility of sovereign immunity, apparently in an attempt to encourage the acceptance of a limited view of immunity.