Hopland Band of Pomo Indians v. United States

13 Cl. Ct. 276, 1987 U.S. Claims LEXIS 164
CourtUnited States Court of Claims
DecidedSeptember 16, 1987
DocketNo. 557-86L
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 13 Cl. Ct. 276 (Hopland Band of Pomo Indians v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering United States Court of Claims primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hopland Band of Pomo Indians v. United States, 13 Cl. Ct. 276, 1987 U.S. Claims LEXIS 164 (cc 1987).

Opinion

OPINION

WIESE, Judge.

The Hopland Band of Porno Indians is a federally recognized Indian tribe located in Mendocino County, California. The Tribe alleges that it suffered damages arising from the Government’s premature — and admittedly unlawful — termination of its trust relationship with the California Indian Rancherías, including the Hopland Ranchería.

The termination was completed in 1967, but the present complaint was not filed until September 1986. The Government now moves to dismiss on grounds that the suit is time-barred. Plaintiff opposes the motion, arguing that the termination of tribal status imposed a legal disability upon the Tribe that justifies tolling of the limitations period.

Following oral argument on June 2,1987, the court issued a bench ruling in defendant’s favor but withheld final judgment to give plaintiff an opportunity to brief certain additional points of law.1 Having received and considered this supplemental briefing, the court now orders that the complaint be dismissed on grounds of standing and failure to state a claim, as well as timeliness. The reasons for the decision are set forth below.

I.

The Hopland Ranchería is one of several dozen small communities in California that were established for the benefit of small bands of homeless Indians. Title to the lands was vested in the United States in trust for the resident Indians.

In 1958, Congress passed the California Ranchería Act, Pub. L. No. 85-671, 72 Stat. 619. The Act established a procedure for terminating, with tribal consent, the Government’s trust relationship with the rancherías. It provided for the distribution of the ranchería property directly to the individual Indians, either in the form of fee-simple conveyances or as proceeds from land sales. The Act was amended in 1964, Pub. L. No. 88-419, 78 Stat. 390, to require the Government, before undertaking any distribution, to improve the water and waste disposal facilities of the land under a tribally approved plan.

In 1961, the Government adopted a plan for terminating the Hopland Ranchería and obtained the necessary approval by majority vote of the adult citizens of the Tribe. As part of this plan, a 1,400-acre tract of grazing and recreation land known as “Parcel 1” was sold to a hunting club and the proceeds were distributed on a pro rata basis to the members of the Tribe (“the distributees”). The remainder of the ranchería property was conveyed directly to the distributees. All of the distributions — the cash from the property sale and the deeds for the ranchería lands — occurred between 1964 and 1967. When the last of the distributions was completed, the Hopland Band’s status as a Tribe was formally terminated.

The termination proved to be unlawful, however, because the Government had failed to undertake the necessary water and sanitation improvements. In Septem[279]*279ber of 1974, the Government admitted its error and wrote to each member of the Hopland Band, acknowledging the continuing existence of its trust relationship with the Tribe. Then, in 1978, several members of the Tribe sued for, and obtained, specific as well as monetary relief to redress injuries they attributed to the unlawful termination. The decision in their favor referred the computation of damages to a magistrate. Smith v. United States, 515 F.Supp. 56 (N.D.Cal.1978).

Following the district court’s initial decision in Smith, a class representing the Indian distributees and their heirs intervened in the suit. Among other things, the class claimed damages for lost hunting and fishing rights (including the cost of obtaining hunting and fishing license fees) arising from the sale of Parcel 1. A stipulated final judgment on that claim was rendered by a federal magistrate in an unpublished order on March 18,1986. Smith v. United States, No. C-74-1016 (N.D.Cal. Mar. 18, 1986).

II.

In the suit now before this court, the Tribe asserts three claims. Count I of the complaint alleges that, with respect to Parcel I, the Tribe “has suffered damages from the loss of use of said land and the cost of replacing the land at current market values.” Count II maintains that the Tribe, as wál as certain of its members, was wrongfully excluded from the class of distributees in the original termination plan because the definition of tribal membership used in the plan was too restrictive. Finally, in Count III of the complaint, the Tribe contends that, because its tribal status was terminated, the Government breached a duty to provide the Tribe “with benefits and services available to federally recognized Indian tribes”.

In considering these allegations of injury, we start with the proposition that the doctrine of res .judicata precludes relit-igation between the same parties or their privies of matters actually litigated and decided by a valid and final judgment, as well as those matters that could have been raised in the prior action. Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 153, 99 S.Ct. 970, 973, 59 L.Ed.2d 210 (1979). Thus, the threshold question that confronts the Tribe is whether the interests that it seeks to vindicate here in regard to Parcel 1 are distinct from those that were or could have been raised in the Smith litigation.

The Tribe purports to answer this question by saying that it brings this suit in its own behalf and not as a representative of the distributees. But this answer simply begs the question. What needs to be answered is whether “the Tribe, qua Tribe, has a discrete claim of injury * * * so as to confer standing upon it apart from the monetary injury asserted by the individual Indian plaintiffs.” Moe v. Salish & Kootenai Tribes, 425 U.S. 463, 468-69 n. 7, 96 S.Ct. 1634, 1639 n. 7, 48 L.Ed.2d 96 (1976). So far as Counts I and II are concerned, the answer is plainly “no”.

As noted earlier, in Count I the Tribe claims damages “from the loss of use of said land [Parcel 1] and the cost of replacing the land at current market values." The court's problem with this claim is that it comes without any rational explanation as to how the economic interests it addresses can be considered distinct from those that were compensated at the time the land was sold and the proceeds distributed to the individual members of the Tribe. And indeed there exists no such explanation; the interests involved are one and the same. To explain:

“Fair market value”, as that term is conventionally used, represents “ ‘what a willing buyer would pay in cash to a willing seller’ ”. United States v. 564.54 Acres of Land, 441 U.S. 506, 511, 99 S.Ct. 1854, 1857, 60 L.Ed.2d 435 (1979); United States v. Miller, 317 U.S. 369, 374, 63 S.Ct. 276, 280, 87 L.Ed. 336 (1943). Thus, as a matter of definition, fair market value denotes an exchange of economic equivalents: the cash received in return for title to the land compensates the owner for the full bundle of rights that he transfers with the fee simple, including the right claimed here —the right to future use and enjoyment. Given this reality, what Count I comes [280]

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

White Mountain Apache Tribe v. United States
20 Cl. Ct. 371 (Court of Claims, 1990)
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians v. United States
16 Cl. Ct. 75 (Court of Claims, 1988)
Hopland Band of Pomo Indians v. The United States
855 F.2d 1573 (Federal Circuit, 1988)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
13 Cl. Ct. 276, 1987 U.S. Claims LEXIS 164, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hopland-band-of-pomo-indians-v-united-states-cc-1987.