WAYLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (WOOD) — In a 6-3 ruling issued Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court brought an end to the federal lawsuit that threatened to close Gun Lake Casino.
David Patchak filed the federal lawsuit in 2008, challenging the decision take land into trust for the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians. By taking the land into trust, the tribe was allowed to build Gun Lake Casino near Wayland, which opened in 2011.
The case wound its way through the courts, including a 2012 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that Patchak had standing to sue the government. After that decision, however, Congress passed the Gun Lake Act, reaffirming the land was properly put into trust for the tribe and removing jurisdiction for federal courts to review the decision. The act directed the courts to dismiss Patchak’s lawsuit, which a federal judge did in June 2015.
Full story: WOOD TV