MASHPEE Wampanoag Tribe Wins!
#StandWithMashpee
“For the foregoing reasons, the Court will grant the Mashpee Tribe’s motion for summary judgment and deny the federal defendants’ and defendant-intervenors’ motions for summary judgment. Furthermore, because the Secretary of the Interior’s September 7, 2018 Record of Decision is arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law, the Court remands the matter to the Secretary of the Interior for a thorough reconsideration and re-evaluation of the evidence before him consistent with this Opinion, the 2014 M-Opinion, M-37209 – its standard and the evidence permitted therein – and the Department’s prior decisions applying the M-Opinion’s two-part test. Because the Court has decided this case on the merits, it will deny the Mashpee Tribe’s emergency motion for a temporary restraining order and motion for a preliminary injunction as moot. An Order consistent with this Opinion will issue this same day.
SO ORDERED.
DATE: June 5, 2020
PAUL L. FRIEDMAN United States District Judge