Blackfeet Housing v. United States

106 Fed. Cl. 142, 2012 U.S. Claims LEXIS 933, 2012 WL 3126771
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedAugust 2, 2012
DocketNo. 12-04C
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 106 Fed. Cl. 142 (Blackfeet Housing v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Federal Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Blackfeet Housing v. United States, 106 Fed. Cl. 142, 2012 U.S. Claims LEXIS 933, 2012 WL 3126771 (uscfc 2012).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

CHRISTINE O.C. MILLER, Judge.

This ease is before the court on defendant’s motion to dismiss pursuant to RCFC 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction and 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. The issue for decision on defendant’s jurisdictional motion is whether Blackfeet Housing Authority (“plaintiff’) timely filed its complaint for breach of a trust responsibility owed to the tribal authority by the United States, which implicates the merits issue. Defendant’s substantive motion questions whether the breach pleaded rests on a specific statutory trust responsibility. Argument is deemed unnecessary.

FACTS AND BACKGROUND

The following facts are taken from plaintiffs complaint and, where necessary for addressing defendant’s jurisdictional challenge, from defendant’s motion to dismiss and the exhibits attached thereto.1 Plaintiff is a governmental entity wholly owned and operated by the Blackfeet Tribe on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana. See Compl. filed Jan. 3, 2012, at 1. Between 1977 and 1980, plaintiff constructed approximately 225 homes on the Blackfeet Reservation using federal government funds allocated through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”). Id. ¶ 5; Def.’s Br. filed Apr. 5, 2012, at 1-2.2 Prior to construction plaintiff submitted the design plans for the homes to HUD for approval; however, HUD representatives were of the opinion that the plans, as submitted, would be too expensive to remain within plaintiffs budget. Def.’s Br. filed Apr. 5, 2012, at Ex. 1-2 (Nov. 29, 1976 letter from Peter A Downs, Director, Technical Services, Office of Indian Programs to Edward Little Plume, Chairman, Blackfeet Indian Housing Authority) (“We do not believe that you will receive a bid anywhere close to being within the funds available if these plans are put out to bid as is.”). In order to remain within budget, HUD advised plaintiff to redesign the housing units. Id.

It appears that plaintiff did not heed this advice initially and chose instead to solicit [144]*144bids for the project under the original design. As predicted, none of the bids initially received by plaintiff were within the allocated budget. Id. at Ex. 1-3 (Mar. 18, 1977 letter from Mr. Downs to Mr. Little Plume). HUD recorded: “It is clear that the bids exceed, by a wide margin, the funds available for building the project. The primary reason for this is, [sic ] we are convinced that the housing units and site plans were not designed to achieve a cost-effective result.” Id Unable to proceed with the project as then designed, HUD notified plaintiff that “[t]he only course available is to re-design.” Id. Plaintiff then altered its design plans. Among numerous other revisions, plaintiff chose to forgo the use of any concrete in the foundation of the homes and elected to use wood for the foundation. Id. at Ex. 1-5 (Attachment to Apr. 11, 1977 Change Order executed by plaintiff) (“Delete all concrete foundations on scattered sites, substitute wood foundations as specified and detailed.”). Although this may have seemed an acceptable compromise prior to construction, by 1998 the wood foundations were posing both health and safety issues to residents. Id. at Ex. 1-6 (Feb. 9,1998 letter from Vernon Haragara, Administrator, Northern Plains Office of Native American Programs, HUD, to Tom Blaekweasal, Executive Director, Blaekfeet Indian Housing Authority) (“Approximately 220 wood basements are in varying degrees of decay. The [plaintiff] estimates that 55 basements are in very serious condition and another 55 basements are in serious condition.”).

On August 2, 2002, Blaekfeet tribal members, consisting of individual home-buyers and renters, filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Montana against both plaintiff and HUD. See id. at 3; see also Marcean v. Blackfeet Housing, Civ. No. 4:02-cv-73-SEH (D. Mont, filed Aug. 2, 2002). The plaintiffs alleged, inter alia, that plaintiff and HUD should be held liable for the damages resulting from the use of wooden foundations in the homes. Def.’s Br. filed Apr. 5, 2012, at 3. Both HUD and plaintiff responded with motions to dismiss certain claims: HUD’s was based on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim, and plaintiffs was based on tribal immunity. See id. at 3-4. The district court granted both motions, and the case subsequently was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. In the final and dispositive Ninth Circuit opinion, that court held, as follows: (1) neither the United States Housing Act of 1937, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1437-1437j (1976), the Indian Housing Act of 1988, 42 U.S.C. §§ 1437aa-1437ee, nor the Native American Housing Assistance and Self-Determination Act of 1996, 25 U.S.C. §§ 4101-4243 (the “NAHAS-DA”), created a trust relationship that imposed fiduciary duties on HUD, see Marcean v. Blaekfeet Housing Auth., 540 F.3d 916, 921-28 (9th Cir.2008)3; (2) the tribal members had alleged sufficient facts to proceed against HUD under the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 702-706 (2006), Mar-cean, 540 F.3d at 928-29; and (3) it was inappropriate to consider the merits of the tribal members’ claims against plaintiff because they had yet to exhaust their tribal-court remedies, id. at 920-21.

On remand the district court ruled that the tribal members’ APA claims stemming from HUD’s alleged decision requiring the use of wooden foundations were barred by the six-year statute of limitations set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 2401(a) (2006), because the decision to use wooden foundations in the homes was made no later than November 15, 1977. See Marceau v. Blackfeet Housing Auth., No. CV-02-73-GF-SEH, slip op. at 10-11 (D.Mont. Mar. 24, 2011). On June 5, 2012, in [145]*145an unpublished decision, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal, ruling:

[The tribal members’] claim against HUD accrued in the late 1970s, when the agency purportedly decided to require wooden foundations. At that time, [the tribal members] knew about the decision [to construct the homes with wooden foundations] and knew that it affected them.... That [the tribal members] may not have immediately grasped the full impact that HUD’s decision might eventually have on them does not mean they knew too little in 1980 to bring an APA challenge.

Marceau v. Blackfeet Housing Auth., 473 Fed.Appx. 764, 764-65 (9th Cir.2012).

II. Procedural History

Plaintiff filed its complaint on January 3, 2012, seeking $30 million in damages resulting from HUD’s alleged breach of “its trust responsibility to plaintiff.” Compl. ¶ 16. On April 5, 2012, defendant moved to dismiss under both RCFC 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). Plaintiff responded on May 7, 2012, and defendant replied on May 31,2012.

DISCUSSION

I. Standards

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
106 Fed. Cl. 142, 2012 U.S. Claims LEXIS 933, 2012 WL 3126771, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/blackfeet-housing-v-united-states-uscfc-2012.