DENVER – On Tuesday, a three-judge panel with the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a former Cheyenne and Arapaho claimant government.

In May 2012, former claimant governor Janice Prairie Chief-Boswell filed a lawsuit against Custer County District Court judge Doug Haught and the First Bank and Trust in Clinton, Okla., after the bank attempted to close out the tribes’ account due to the ongoing internal leadership dispute. The bank is not a tribally-owned business and although it is located within the tribes’ jurisdictional area, it is not on trust property.

To date, more than $6.1 million in tribal assets remain under court control pending a separate appeal. The last district court hearing on the frozen funds was in November 2012 when Haught denied an application from the faction based out of El Reno, Okla., for partial access to funds.

In its decision, the 10th Circuit Court upheld the Western District of Oklahoma’s stance that the tribes’ sovereign immunity and constitutional rights were not violated by Haught’s decision to place the account under the district court’s administration.

“In instituting the freeze, First Bank acted in its capacity as a private business; it obtained no significant aid from Judge Haught, nor was its conduct chargeable to the state,” Judge Carlos Lucero wrote. “Judge Haught’s assumption of supervision over the accounts did not transform First Bank’s freeze into state action. Thus, even if the plaintiffs, in the capacity of depositors, were ‘persons’ who could sue First Bank…they could not maintain a claim regarding the freeze.”