Karuk Tribe of California v. United States

41 Fed. Cl. 468, 1998 U.S. Claims LEXIS 187, 1998 WL 466843
CourtUnited States Court of Federal Claims
DecidedAugust 6, 1998
DocketNos. 90-3993L, 91-1432L, 92-173L
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 41 Fed. Cl. 468 (Karuk Tribe of California 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
Karuk Tribe of California v. United States, 41 Fed. Cl. 468, 1998 U.S. Claims LEXIS 187, 1998 WL 466843 (uscfc 1998).

Opinion

OPINION

MARGOLIS, Judge.

In this consolidated action, plaintiffs, the Karuk Tribe of California (“Karuk”), the Yurok Indian Tribe (“Yurok”), and individual Indians led by Carol McConnell Ammon (“Ammon Group”), move for summary judgment, claiming that the 1988 Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act, 25 U.S.C. § 1300i et seq., effected a Fifth Amendment taking of their property interests in the former Hoopa Valley Reservation (“Reservation”). All plaintiffs rely upon the Act of April 8, 1864, 13 Stat. 39, as the basis for their vested property claims. Plaintiffs further point to actions of defendant, the United States, such as allocation of funds for the tribes on the Reservation, allotment of land to individual Indians, and provision of education and other benefits to tribe members as support for their contention. Plaintiff Ammon Group also alleges that defendant is collaterally estopped by prior litigation from denying plaintiffs’ vested interests in the Reservation. Defendant and defendant-intervenor, the Hoopa Valley Tribe, cross move for summary judgment, contending that neither the 1864 Act nor any subsequent benefits conferred thereunder vested any compensable property rights. As a result, defendant and defendant-intervenor argue, the 1988 Act does not implicate the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Defendant and defendant-intervenor also move for summary judgment on the basis that plaintiffs are collaterally estopped from claiming a taking due to a prior case involving the Reservation. After a full briefing and oral argument on the issue, this court grants defendant and defendant-intervenor’s motion for summary judgment, based solely [470]*470on the takings grounds, and denies plaintiffs’ summary judgment motions.

FACTS

The Hoopa Valley Reservation was created pursuant to the Act of April 8, 1864, 13 Stat. 39 (“1864 Act”). The pertinent part of the 1864 Act states that

[t]here shall be set apart by the President, and at his discretion, not exceeding four tracts of land, within the limits of said state, to be retained by the United States for purposes of Indian reservations, which shall be of suitable extent for the accommodation of the Indians of said state, and shall be located as remote from white settlements as may be found practicable, having due regard to their adaptation to the purposes for which they are intended....

13 Stat. at 40. In 1865, the Reservation’s boundaries, encompassing a 12-mile square tract, were provisionally determined. President Ulysses S. Grant, in an 1876 executive order, formally defined the borders of the Reservation, which was also referred to as “the Square.” See Jessie Short v. United States, 202 Ct.Cl. 870, 874, 486 F.2d 561 (1973). By executive order of President Benjamin Harrison, the Reservation was extended in 1891. The territory added to the Reservation has been referred to as “the Addition.” See id. From the beginning of the Reservation until the present, the Square has been dominated by the Hoopa Valley Tribe (“Hoopa”), and the Addition by the Yurok, with the Karuk dispersed in both areas.

A dispute over which Indians had rights to revenues generated from sales of timber on the Square was the basis of Jessie Short v. United States, 202 Ct.Cl. 870, 486 F.2d 561 (1973) (“Short I”), 228 Ct.Cl. 535, 661 F.2d 150 (1981) (“Short II”), 719 F.2d 1133 (Fed.Cir.1983) (“Short III”), and 12 Cl.Ct. 36 (1987) (“Short IV”). In Short I, the Court of Claims held that none of the Indians on the Reservation had a superior right to the revenues generated by the sale of timber cut from the Square, regardless of whether the Indian lived on the Square or the Addition. See Short I, 202 Ct.Cl. at 884-85, 486 F.2d 561. Following that lengthy litigation, Congress in 1988 passed the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act of October 31, 1988 (“1988 Act”), 25 U.S.C. § 1300i et seq. The 1988 Act partitioned the Reservation, granting the use of the Square to the Hoopa as a reservation, and giving the use of the Addition to the Yurok for a reservation. The Karuk were not given any of the Reservation for use as their own.

The 1988 Act’s partitioning of the Reservation instigated this litigation.

DISCUSSION

Plaintiffs contend that the 1864 Act vested their ancestors or tribes with compensable rights in the Reservation. As a result, plaintiffs claim they have been subject to a taking under the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which forbids the taking of property by the government without just compensation. The Yurok contend they had a compensable expectancy in the Square taken away by the 1988 Act. The Karuk claim their vested interest in the entire Reservation was deprived by the 1988 Act. Finally, the Ammon Group claim their vested rights in the Reservation were destroyed without compensation by the 1988 Act. The United States has filed a motion for summary judgment, alleging that plaintiffs do not possess a compensable expectancy in the Reservation because the 1864 Act did not grant vested property rights to the Indians, and that plaintiffs are collaterally estopped from relitigating the issue of vested property rights, which, defendant contends, was resolved in Short I. Defendant-intervenor, the Hoopa, has joined in the United States’s motion.

Plaintiffs oppose defendant’s motion and have separately filed cross-motions for summary judgment,1 arguing that as a matter of law they have compensable expectancies in the Reservation through the 1864 Act, or alternatively on grounds such as legislative [471]*471intent, various Indian tribes’ understanding of the situation, the fact that plaintiffs were aboriginal residents of the land, provision by the federal government of education, health care, and welfare, allotment of land to individual Indians, and general monitoring of social conditions on the Reservation. The Ammon Group also alleges that defendant and defendant-intervenor are collaterally es-topped by Short I from denying plaintiffs’ vested interests in the Reservation.

Though the court does not find any party’s collateral estoppel argument to be persuasive, it chooses not to address that issue because the takings issue is dispositive.

I. Governing Principles

In order for a plaintiff to invoke the Fifth Amendment Takings Clause, it must establish a “historically rooted expectation” of compensability in the property alleged to have been taken. See Lucas v. South Carolina Coastal Council, 505 U.S. 1003, 1027-28, 112 S.Ct. 2886, 120 L.Ed.2d 798 (1992); California Hous. Sec., Inc. v. United States, 959 F.2d 955, 958 (Fed.Cir.1992). The range of interests qualified for protection under the Fifth Amendment is defined by the “existing rules or understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law,” Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth,

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41 Fed. Cl. 468, 1998 U.S. Claims LEXIS 187, 1998 WL 466843, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/karuk-tribe-of-california-v-united-states-uscfc-1998.