Osage Tribe of Indians v. United States

96 Fed. Cl. 390, 2010 U.S. Claims LEXIS 960, 2010 WL 5397226
United States Court of Federal Claims·Decided December 29, 2010·No. Nos. 99-0550 L, 00-169 L·Published·Cited by 7 cases

Opinion

OPINION

HEWITT, Chief Judge.

I. Background

This Opinion resolves certain issues that were the focus of a June 30 and July 1, 2010 trial (trial), during which the court heard testimony from five witnesses2 and admitted [394]*394forty-three exhibits into evidence. See generally Cumulative Index for Tr. of Proceedings [H]eld on June 30, 2010 and July 1, 2010, Docket Number (Dkt. No.) 565.3

The trial was held to resolve factual disputes that the court identified during its consideration of plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment on damages owed to plaintiff (Osage Tribe or Osage Nation) stemming from defendant’s breach of its fiduciary duty to collect, deposit and invest revenues generated from Osage oil leases.4 See Osage Tribe of Indians of Okla. v. United States (Osage IV), 93 Fed.Cl. 1, 20-21, 34 (2010) (finding that a trial on two issues was warranted); see also Order of June 21,2010, Dkt. No. 539, at 2 (allowing defendant’s expert to testify regarding a third unresolved issue). The [395]*395court characterizes these issues as the Koch data issue, the gravity adjustment issue and the interest credit issue; each will be discussed in turn below. First, however, the court provides a brief overview of the history of this dispute,5 discussions of the court's findings in Osage Tribe of Indians of Okla. v. United States (Osage II), 72 Fed.Cl. 629 (2006), the court’s initial trial on liability and damages, and Osage IV, which addressed plaintiffs 2009 motion for summary judgment, and a summary of the court’s pre-trial rulings.

A. Overview

In Osage II, the court held that “the United States violated its duty as trustee of the Osage mineral estate by failing to collect all moneys due from Osage oil leases and to deposit and invest those moneys as required by statute and according to the fiduciary duty owed to the Osage Tribe.” Osage II, 72 Fed.Cl. at 631, 671. The statute at issue, which was enacted into law in 1906, see Act of June 28, 1906, ch. 3572, 34 Stat. 539 (1906 Act), states that “leases for all oil, gas, and other minerals ... may be made by the Osage [Tjribe of Indians through its tribal council, and with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, and under such rules and regulations as he may prescribe.” 34 Stat. at 543. The 1906 Act further provides “[tjhat all funds belonging to the Osage [Tjribe, and all moneys due, and all moneys that may become due, ... shall be held in trust by the United States.” 34 Stat. at 544. In Osage Tribe of Indians of Okla. v. United States (Osage I), 68 Fed.Cl. 322 (2005), the court found that the 1906 Act “establishes fiduciary duties that include both the proper management of Osage funds on deposit with the Treasury and the proper accounting of ‘all moneys due, and all moneys that may become due,’ in accordance with the terms of the oil and gas leases.” Osage I, 68 Fed.Cl. at 327 (internal citations omitted). The Osage Agency, which is housed in the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the Department of the Interior, was responsible for managing the Osage oil leases. Osage II, 72 Fed.Cl. at 633. The regulations that guided the Osage Agency in its management of the leases (Osage Regulations) were established by the BIA and are unique to the Osage Reservation.6 Id.

To facilitate management of the large amount of historical accounting data related to the Osage Agency’s execution of its trust duties, the court and parties defined five exemplary “Tranche One trial months” — January 1976, May 1979, November 1980, February 1986 and July 1989 — and four “Tranche One trial leases.”7 Osage II, 72 Fed.Cl. at 631 n. 2; see Order of Feb. 22, 2006, Dkt. No. 176, at 2. “Both parties supported the use of the Tranche One months and leases as exemplary of the issues in dispute in the time periods represented.” Osage IV, 93 Fed.Cl. at 5 n. 3; see also Osage Tribe of Indians of Okla. v. United States (Osage III), 75 Fed.Cl. 462, 474 (2007) [396]*396(“The point of a trial on specific leases for specific months [was] to provide the parties an opportunity to focus on discovery and factual presentation in a manageable format.”)-

After a trial on liability and damages for the exemplary Tranche One months and leases, the court held that the United States owed the Tribe damages for breach of its fiduciary duty as trustee and directed the parties to “jointly calculate and present to the court the amount of damages to which plaintiff is entitled.” Osage II, 72 Fed.Cl. at 671. The parties disagreed on some elements of the damages calculation in their Joint Submission on Calculation of Tranche One Damages, Dkt. No. 251, filed on November 16, 2006. On February 15, 2007 the court issued an opinion evaluating the parties’ disagreements and directed the parties to file their damages calculations in accordance with its opinion. Osage III, 75 Fed.Cl. at 483. Upon the filing of the parties’ second Joint Submission on Tranche One Damages, Dkt. No. 268, the court entered judgment for the Tribe in the amount of $1,876,878.30.8 Judgment of Mar. 16, 2007, Dkt. No. 270. This amount consists of the damages owed to the Tribe with respect to the five Tranche One trial months for the four Tranche One trial leases. Osage IV, 93 Fed.Cl. at 6.

Fact discovery commenced on May 19, 2008 for all issues related to the application of the Tranche One trial damages calculation to the broader Tranche One time periods: (1) July 1974 through December 2000 for all oil-royalty under-collection claims, and (2) fiscal years 1973 to 1992 for all deposit-lag, exees-sive-eash-balance and investment-yield claims. Order of May 19, 2008, Dkt. No. 300. Discovery closed on November 18, 2008, Order of Aug. 21, 2008, Dkt. No. 319, and plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment on February 23, 2009,9 see PI. Osage Nation’s Amended Mot. for Summ. J. on All Oil-Royalty Under-Collection Claims for July 1974 to December 2000 and All Deposit-Lag, Excessive-Cash-Balance, and Investment-Yield Claims for Accounts 7386 and 7886 for United States Fiscal Years 1973 to 1992 (plaintiffs Motion for Summary Judgment or PL’s Mot. Summ. J.), Dkt. No. 407, at 2.

In opposition to plaintiffs Motion for Summary Judgment, the government argued that summary judgment was inappropriate because a “ ‘determination of liability has [not] yet been found’ beyond the Tranche One trial months and leases.” Osage IV, 93 Fed.Cl. at 6 (quoting Def.’s Statement Regarding the Disc. Period Prior to Trial, Dkt. No. 497, at 2). The court disagreed, holding that

[t]he existence of the government’s breach is the law of the case, and the purpose of this summary judgment action is to apply that law — to the extent it is legally appropriate to do so — to the broader Tranche One time periods, using the Tranche One trial months and leases as representative examples of the application of the law to each regulatory time frame at issue.

Id. at 7. As is discussed in more detail below, see infra Part I.C (discussing Osage IV), the court found that a trial was necessary to resolve issues pertaining to the use of Koch data and to the allocation of interest credits, Osage IV,

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