What Good Is a Treaty That Congress Can Simply Discard? Quite a Bit, as the Creek Nation’s Victory in the Supreme Court Shows

MICHAEL C. DORF

Cornell law professor Michael C. Dorf comments on the recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in McGirt v. Oklahoma, holding that a substantial portion of the state of Oklahoma is an Indian reservation of the Creek Nation. Dorf observes that the majority’s approach in McGirt makes it more likely that courts will find the existence of reservations for other tribes, but there could be collateral consequences in many other contexts.

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Pilot Point, LLC v. Town of Cape Elizabeth

Citation: 2020 ME 100

Opinion Date: July 21, 2020

Judge: Humphrey

Areas of Law: Real Estate & Property Law

The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed the judgment entered in the Business and Consumer Docket concluding that the Town of Cape Elizabeth's proffered evidence was insufficient to support a finding that the Town's right to accept the "incipient dedication" of a particular portion of land lapsed at common law, holding that the court did not err in its application of the common law lapse standard. Pilot Point, LLC sought a declaratory judgment that the Town's right to accept the incipient dedication of a portion of Surf Side Avenue (the "Pilot Point Section") had lapsed at common law (count one) and, alternatively, that the Town's right was limited by the scope of the original dedication (count two). The court granted the Town's motion for judgment as a matter of law on count one and dismissed count two as unripe. The Supreme Judicial Court affirmed, holding that the trial court did not err (1) in determining that the evidence was insufficient as a matter of law to establish that the Town's right to accept the dedication of the Pilot Point section had lapsed at common law; and (2) in dismissing without prejudice count two as unripe for judicial review.