PORTLAND – The Maine Supreme Judicial Court unanimously ruled on Thursday that a 7-year-old eviction dispute between a former Pleasant Point woman and the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Housing Authority belongs in state, not tribal, court.

The lawsuit was remanded to Washington County Superior Court. A trial date has not been set.

The case is not expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The state’s high court found that “because the housing authority is not the tribe, it cannot evoke the tribe’s statutory status.” In a four-page decision written by Justice Paul L. Rudman, the justices found that their ruling in Pamela Francis’ 1999 employment lawsuit against her former employer, the Pleasant Point Passamaquoddy Housing Authority, also applied to her eviction case.

Francis, former executive director of the housing authority, filed the eviction case on which the high court ruled Thursday five years ago. It stems from a property dispute with her successor, Colleen Dana-Cummings, and claims that she authorized the illegal entry into Francis’ house in Pleasant Point and the removal of her personal belongings.

The housing authority denied any wrongdoing and filed a counterclaim alleging that Francis, who now lives in southern Maine, had no right to occupy the house.

“When the Legislature intended for sections of the Indian Claims Settlement Act to apply to the individual members of the tribe, it did so expressly,” Rudman wrote in Thursday’s decision. “Consequently, Dana-Cummings is not the tribe and may not invoke the protections afforded the tribe by [statute].”

Last year, however, the state’s high court did not reject arguments that tribal members could assert that claim, the housing authority’s attorney, Kaighn Smith Jr. of Portland, said Friday. The justices simply instructed the members to return to the lower court to better establish the facts supporting that claim. They did so, but now the court has said that only the tribe can make that claim.

“Without an explanation from the court, we cannot harmonize the two decisions in this case,” Smith said Friday. “The court’s decision last year, which sent the tribal members back to the lower court to establish the facts for their internal tribal matters argument, now stands as an anomaly.”

Efforts on Friday to reach Francis’ attorney, Curtis Webber of Auburn, were unsuccessful. He said last month, however, that Francis wanted the case decided in state court because it was unclear whether the tribal court could order payments for damages and legal fees.

The legal skirmishing began in 1997 when Francis sued after her dismissal the previous year. She alleged that her contractual and civil rights were violated when she was fired. The housing authority alleged that Francis breached her contract and was unjustly enriched while she worked there.

The state’s high court ruled in her favor in the 1999 case now referred to as “Francis 1.” The justices vacated then-Maine Superior Court Justice Margaret Kravchuk’s ruling that the dispute belonged in tribal court and sent it back to Washington County Superior Court.

Francis settled that case in October 2001. She was awarded $50,000 and an additional $75,000 in legal fees. Francis, who now lives in Old Orchard Beach, was never charged with any wrongdoing.

She filed the property dispute lawsuit, “Francis 2,” the next year.

Maine Superior Court Justice Andrew Mead ruled that the case should be decided by the tribal court because it is a dispute between two members of the Passamaquoddy Tribe.

In January 2004, the state supreme court sent the case back to Washington County Superior Court because the evidence record was not sufficient for Mead to have determined that the dispute was an internal tribal matter.

Once the record was established, Maine Superior Court Justice Ellen Gorman ruled in July that the remanded case belonged in tribal court.

However, in “Francis 3,” a third case against the housing authority, the judge found that the state supreme court’s decision in “Francis 1” meant that “Francis 3” should be in Superior Court.

The justices’ most recent decision appears to uphold that ruling.