UPDATE: This just in ... U.S. District Judge John Sedwick today dismissed the case.

Sedwick granted a motion for dismissal "for lack of subject matter jurisdiction" by the feds and by Ivanof Bay Village, filing the order today.

I'm no lawyer, but here's my understanding of what happened based on the order and interviews: The judge recently asked Mitchell to prove why the court should hear the case at all. In other words, he wanted to know how ruling on tribal sovereignty would help a guy looking to get paid for a broken contract.

Mitchell answered that one way to resolve that question would be for the federal judge to just decide on both issues -- the contract dispute and the looming sovereignty question. Sedwick appears to say he doesn't have jurisdiction on the contract issue. Thus: Dismissal.

The tribal sovereignty fight is back in federal court this year, with Anchorage attorney Don Mitchell looking for a victory against Ivanof Bay Village and – more broadly – against the legal authority and powers of Alaska tribes.

The argument is an old one: Mitchell says Alaska village governments were never really awarded tribal status while Alaska Native leaders and groups like the Native American Rights Fund say the legal status of Alaska tribes is long-settled.

The suit is framed around a contract dispute between Ivanof Bay Village and Michael McCrary, a Palmer man hired to be a kind of caretaker of village buildings and to generate some kind of economic development in the village, according to the lawsuit.

Ivanof Bay is on the southern coast of the Alaska Peninsula, 250 miles southeast of Dillingham. The school closed in 2003. No one lives there anymore, according to the state Division of Community and Regional Affairs. The state lists Anchorage addresses for the village council and corporation.

McCrary, who claims he’s owed money by the village and wasn't allowed to retrieve personal belongings he stored there, tried to sue in state court. Ivanof Bay Village moved to dismiss the case because the village has sovereign immunity to such lawsuits as a federally recognized tribe, according to the lawsuit. That’s where Mitchell comes in. He represents McCrary in a suit against the village and the federal government. He’s a lightning rod on the issue and long argued that Alaska tribes don’t have the same status as tribes in the Lower 48.

While the complaint was filed in November, it’s been getting attention from Alaska Native leaders over the past few days, according to a series of e-mails forwarded to reporters.

I've asked the Alaska Federation of Natives if they plan to get involved. Bristol Bay Native Association contributed to Ivanof Bay Village’s defense in July, according to the e-mails.

“I’m surprised actually that it’s taken them this long to become concerned about this,” Mitchell said.

So how big a deal is the lawsuit?

Heather Kendall-Miller, a Native American Rights Fund attorney in Anchorage, dismissed it as the latest in a string of ill-fated attempts by Mitchell to get a ruling against tribal status in Alaska.

“It’s laughable,” she said. “It’s Don Mitchell’s vision of what he would like the law to be, not what it is.”

But Mitchell says he's simply trying to get a ruling on the merits of his argument. If this lawsuit doesn’t get a ruling on tribal status, Mitchell said, he’s got another that makes an identical argument, based on a Fairbanks custody case. (One of his previous tribal sovereignty lawsuits centered on a custody battle in Tok.)

“One of these days, in one of these cases, this issue will be decided. Whether this is that day, and the case ... we shall see in the next month or so," Mitchell said.

Ivanof Bay: Lake & Peninsula School District photo