Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit issued an opinion in Oneida Indian Nation v. United States DOI, No. 2018-2607(Oct. 21, 2019), dismissing for lack of standing a tribe’s suit challenging the Department of Interior (“DOI”) decision approving another tribe’s name change.
The Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin (“Wisconsin Oneidas”) requested that the DOI conduct a Secretarial election to amend the tribe’s constitution to change the tribe’s name to “Oneida Nation.” The DOI agreed, but suggested the Wisconsin Oneidas consider potential confusion with the New York Oneidas, which then called itself “Oneida Nation of New York.” After the name change, the DOI issued the revised version of the Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act of 1994, which referred to the Wisconsin Oneidas as “Oneida Nation.” The Wisconsin Oneidas then petitioned the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) to cancel the New York Oneidas’ registration of the marks “Oneida” and “Oneida Indian Nation,” arguing that the Wisconsin Oneidas’ name was “federally recognized” as Oneida Nation.
The New York Oneidas brought an action against the DOI in the Northern District of New York, asserting injury from DOI’s approval of the Wisconsin Oneidas’ name change and listing. The district court dismissed for lack of standing.
The Second Circuit affirmed. The Court explained that the parallel TTAB proceeding did not confer standing because the Wisconsin Oneidas’ prior name also included “Oneida,” and it used the “Oneida” mark in commerce well before its DOI-sanctioned name change. The Court concluded that a declaratory judgment invalidating DOI’s recognition of the change was, therefore, not likely to end the TTAB proceeding or materially strengthen New York Oneidas’ position. The Court further explained that even if the federally recognized name change caused confusion sufficient to support an injury, the record did not demonstrate that any commercial confusion was fairly traceable to DOI’s action, as the Wisconsin Oneidas had been referring to itself as the “Oneida Nation” in relationships with the public and on internal government documents for decades. Finally, the Court rejected the argument that the DOI’s publication of the new name implied that the federal government regarded the New York Oneidas as lesser. The Court noted that the DOI’s policy is to approve automatically any name chosen by a tribe and there was no allegation that anyone viewed the New York Oneidas as somehow inferior in light of the DOI’s actions.