Pales v. Cherokee Nation Enterprises

KENNETH L. BUETTNER, Judge.

¶ 1 Petitioner Frankie R. Pales seeks review of an order of the Workers’ Compensation Court which dismissed Pales’s claim for compensation based on lack of jurisdiction. The trial court held that Respondent Cherokee Nation Enterprises (Employer) is an entity of the sovereign Cherokee Nation which has enacted its own workers’ compensation laws, and that Respondent Hudson Insurance Company had issued a policy of workers’ compensation insurance pursuant to tribal law. The trial court found Employer was entitled to immunity as a sovereign tribe with its own workers’…