Becker v. Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah & Ouray Reservation

HARTZ, Circuit Judge.

The Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation1 appeals a preliminary injunction ordering it not to proceed with *1201litigation in tribal court against a nonmember former contractor, Lynn Becker. The district court ruled that although the parties’ dispute would ordinarily come within the tribal court’s jurisdiction, their Independent Contractor Agreement (the Contract) waived the Tribe’s right to litigate in that forum.

The Tribe mounts two challenges to the preliminary injunction. First, it contends that the tribal-exhaustion rule, which ordinarily requires a…