Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Co. v. Watchman

JOHN P. MOORE, Circuit Judge.

This case represents the second time this controversy has appeared before us. In 1986, the Pittsburg & Midway Coal Mining Company (P & M) filed an action in federal court seeking an injunction and declaratory judgment that the Navajo Nation lacked jurisdiction to impose its Business Activities Tax on the “source gains” from P & M’s South McKinley Mine.1 The Navajo Nation replied the federal court should abstain based on the tribal abstention doctrine, allowing the tribal court to hear the issue first. The Tribe offered two different theories in support of its…