Judge Denies Scotts Valley Injunction in Vallejo Casino Fight

A federal judge has denied the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians' request for a preliminary injunction in its fight over the proposed Vallejo casino, a ruling that keeps the project stalled while the tribe's underlying lawsuit against the Department of the Interior moves forward. The October 2, 2026 decision from Judge Trevor McFadden of the U.S. District Court found that the band had not shown it was likely to succeed on any of its four legal claims, and characterized much of the financial harm the tribe cited as "self-inflicted."

The Scotts Valley preliminary injunction ruling does not decide whether Interior was right to reverse itself. It decides only whether the tribe is entitled to emergency relief while that question is litigated. The distinction matters, because the merits ruling is still pending and the case remains open.

What the tribe asked the court to do

Scotts Valley asked the court to temporarily restore the federal approval that had cleared the way for gaming at its Vallejo site. Interior approved the project in January 2025 under a federal exception to IGRA's general bar on gaming on lands acquired after 1988, and then reversed course in July 2026 after reconsidering the evidence. In the reversal, the department concluded that the band lacked a sufficient historical connection to the Vallejo parcel, which sits roughly 80 miles from the tribe's traditional homeland. The band spent about a decade pursuing the site.

Without an injunction, the tribe's Vallejo preview casino, which opened in late July, remains closed. The band had told the court that the closure was costing it money, including claimed monthly maintenance costs of $235,247, a figure the judge described as questionable.

Why the judge said no

According to reporting on the decision, McFadden wrote that the tribe "rolled the dice" by investing roughly $10 million in the project even though it knew the venture faced serious legal uncertainty. In his view, losses that flow from a calculated business decision made under known risk are not the kind of irreparable harm that justifies emergency relief. He also found that Scotts Valley had not demonstrated a likelihood of success on any of its four claims against the department.

Those two findings track the core of the familiar preliminary-injunction test, which asks whether a plaintiff is likely to prevail, whether it will suffer irreparable harm without relief, and whether the balance of equities and the public interest favor an order. A court that finds a plaintiff unlikely to succeed on the merits often does not need to reach the remaining factors, though judges commonly address them anyway. For a deeper look at how that standard operates in this field, see our explainer on preliminary injunctions in tribal gaming cases.

The land-eligibility question underneath

The dispute turns on IGRA's rules for gaming on newly acquired land. As a general matter, the statute bars gaming on land taken into trust after October 17, 1988, unless an exception applies. One of those exceptions covers lands taken into trust for an Indian tribe that is restored to federal recognition, and the department must assess whether the tribe has a sufficient connection to the land in question. Our Section 20 explainer walks through how those exceptions are structured.

That framework is why the Vallejo case has drawn attention well beyond the Bay Area. If a determination made in January 2025 can be reversed in July 2026 on the basis of a re-weighed record, tribes planning similar off-homeland projects face a different risk calculation than they assumed. The ruling also arrives against the backdrop of continuing litigation over other California trust-land and compact disputes, which readers can track through the California state hub.

What happens next

The casino remains closed, and McFadden has yet to rule on the merits of the band's lawsuit. The tribe's earlier filing, covered in our report on the Scotts Valley suit against Interior, laid out the claims that will now be decided on the full administrative record rather than on an emergency timeline. The band could also pursue an appeal of the preliminary ruling, though nothing in the reporting reviewed for this article indicates that it has announced one.

The project carries a projected $700 million price tag in the development reporting, and the financing and partnership questions surrounding a closed preview facility will not be easy to resolve until the court addresses the underlying claims. Readers should treat any timeline for reopening as unsettled.

The broader lesson for tribal developers is about sequencing. Capital committed before a federal land determination is final is capital at risk, and courts are not obliged to rescue a tribe from that risk when it was visible at the outset. Whether that reading survives review will depend on how the merits case unfolds. For general background on the legal pathways involved, consult the site's Legal Guide.

The ruling decides who bears the risk while the case is pending, not who is ultimately right about the Vallejo parcel.

TribalGaming.com will update this story when the court rules on the merits or when the band announces its next step.