Smith v. James

Joyce James and her sisters (collectively, the sisters) (plaintiffs), who were the granddaughters of Martha Bolehongna, were members of the Hopi Tribe and lived on the Hopi Reservation in the Village of Hotevilla (the village) in Arizona. Ruth Smith (defendant), Bolehongna’s daughter, was also a member of the Hopi Tribe. But Smith moved off of the Hopi Reservation and onto the Yavapai-Apache Reservation with her husband, a member of the Yavapai-Apache Tribe. When Bolehongna died, she left a plot of farming land within the Hopi Reservation. Both Smith and the sisters asserted ownership over the land. Smith claimed that her father passed the land to her orally. Conversely, the sisters claimed that, according to Hopi tradition, under which lands pass matrilineally, their mother, Smith’s sister, passed the land to them. The sisters filed a quiet-title action in the Hopi Tribal Court, seeking a preliminary injunction, and Smith filed a cross-claim. After conducting a fact-finding hearing, the court held a hearing in which the parties presented evidence regarding the village’s customs and traditions. Based on that evidence, the tribal court held in the sisters’ favor. Smith appealed, arguing that by holding the fact-finding hearing before considering the village’s customs and traditions, the tribal court had failed to adequately consider the customary law before issuing its ruling.