Patchak v. Zinke

Patchak v. Zinke
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued November 7, 2017 Decided February 27, 2018
Full case name	David Patchak, Petitioner v. Ryan Zinke, Secretary of the Interior
Docket no.	16-498
Citations	586 U.S. ___ (more) 138 S. Ct. 897; 200 L. Ed. 2d 92; 86 U.S.L.W. 4077
Argument	Oral argument
Case history
Prior	Patchak v. Salazar, 646 F. Supp. 2d 72 (D.D.C. 2009); reversed 632 F.3d 702 (D.C. Cir. 2011); cert. granted, 565 U.S. 1092 (2011); affirmed, Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians v. Patchak, 567 U.S. 209 (2012); on remand, Patchak v. Jewell, 109 F. Supp. 3d 152 (D.D.C.); affirmed, 828 F.3d 995 (D.C. Cir. 2016); cert. granted, 137 S. Ct. 2091 (2017).
Court membership
Chief Justice John Roberts Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy · Clarence Thomas Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor Elena Kagan · Neil Gorsuch
Case opinions
Plurality	Thomas, joined by Breyer, Alito, Kagan
Concurrence	Breyer
Concurrence	Ginsburg (in judgment), joined by Sotomayor
Concurrence	Sotomayor (in judgment)
Dissent	Roberts, joined by Kennedy, Gorsuch

Patchak v. Zinke, 583 U.S. ___ (2018), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court upheld the Gun Lake Trust Land Reaffirmation Act, which precludes federal courts from hearing lawsuits involving a particular parcel of land.^[1] Although six Justices agreed that the Gun Lake Act was constitutional, they could not agree on why. In an opinion issued by Justice Thomas, a plurality of the Court read the statute to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over cases involving the property and held that this did not violate Article Three of the United States Constitution. In contrast, Justices Ginsburg and Sotomayor, both of whom concurred in the judgment, upheld the Act as a restoration of the government's sovereign immunity. Chief Justice Roberts, writing for himself and Justices Kennedy and Gorsuch, dissented on the ground that the statute intruded on the judicial power, in violation of Article III.