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A federal judge on Monday got attorneys for the LDS Church and those for four members of the Navajo Nation to hold off on a subpoena to LDS President Thomas S. Monson while the court decides whether to allow lawsuits to go forward over alleged sexual abuse in an LDS program for student American Indians several decades ago.

U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby took under advisement a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the LDS Church that asks him to rule that Navajo Tribal Court doesn't have jurisdiction to hear three legal actions brought by tribal members. The four Navajos say the church was negligent because of the sex abuse they allegedly suffered when boarded in homes off the reservation from the 1960s through early the '80s.

Attorneys for the Navajos attempted to subpoena Monson to testify at a deposition about the Indian Student Placement Program. The church is seeking to quash the subpoena by arguing that Monson did not supervise the program or know details of it.

Both sides agreed to Shelby's request to suspend actions on the issue until he rules on the question of tribal court jurisdiction.

David Jordan, an attorney representing the church, told Shelby that the law and legal precedent restricts jurisdiction of tribal courts to actions that take place on reservation land. Any sexual abuse or failure to protect the participants took place off the Navajo reservation, he said. 

"There's not tribal court jurisdiction because the conduct, negligent though it may be, is not conduct on the reservation, even though the harm is on the reservation," he said.

At the onset of a nearly three-hour hearing, Shelby signaled that he was leaning toward allowing the lawsuits to proceed in tribal court.

"It seems to me the Navajo defendants' motion must be granted to allow exhaustion [of the proceedings] before the tribal court," Shelby said, though it wasn't clear by the end of the hearing whether he still held that position.

Craig K. Vernon, an attorney for the Navajos who brought the lawsuits, said while the abuse took place off the reservation, the alleged negligence by the church happened within it.

"We believe this is almost an attempt to take sovereignty away from a sovereign nation," he said.

Jordan also complained that the Navajos' lawsuit was seeking to force The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to change worldwide ecclesiastical policies, a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.