Settlement Appears Close on Indian Trust

[wazhazhe]

After floundering in court for ten years, Cobell v. Norton, et al., may be nearing settlement. The complete article

Settlement Appears Close on Indian Trust

By JENNIFER TALHELM
The Associated Press
Monday, July 24, 2006; 7:48 PM

WASHINGTON -- American Indians suing the government over billions of dollars in lost royalties say they are contemplating an offer by members of Congress to resolve their lawsuit for $8 billion.

The offer is considerably lower than the $27.5 billion plaintiffs offered to settle for a year ago. But plaintiffs say they are considering it seriously, bringing them closer than ever to ending the lawsuit, which has bogged down the Interior and Justice departments for 10 years.

"Eight billion dollars is something I wish was higher, but I'm glad they were able to bring something forward that was equitable," the lead plaintiff, Blackfeet Indian Elouise Cobell, said in an interview. "Can we ever get near the total fair amount that should be given to individual Indians? I don't think so. I think individual Indian account holders would support $8 billion."

Cobell filed the class-action lawsuit in 1996, accusing the government of mishandling more than $100 billion in oil, gas, timber, grazing and other royalties from Indians' lands dating back to 1887.

 

[cloudy]

Wasn't the judge (damn it, I forget his name) dismissed from the case not too long ago for being too "predjudicial" to the plaintiff?

(you'll have to excuse me....this is something I've been following, but haven't had 'net access on the rez for awhile)

 

[cloudy]

Lamberth....that's his name.

An article from ICT:

Lamberth is out; impact on Cobell is up in the air

WASHINGTON - Federal defense attorneys lost their favorite target in the trust funds lawsuit known as Cobell v. Kempthorne, following an appeals court order that the chief judge for the District of Columbia circuit reassign the case.

The July 11 ruling ousted Judge Royce Lamberth from the proceedings, an exceedingly rare step that a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. circuit arrived at ''reluctantly'' in the belief that '''justice must satisfy the appearance of justice' - that is, reasonable observers must have confidence that judicial decisions flow from the impartial application of law to fact, not from a judge's animosity to a party.''

The 10-year class action lawsuit, brought by Individual Indian Money account holders against the Interior Department (the government's delegate for managing the IIM trust), seeks an accounting of the revenues due to the trust after more than a century of mismanagement - a track record Lamberth memorably termed ''Interior's degenerate tenure.''

Those words are among a salvo of others that convinced the panel Lamberth has lost his judicial dispassion in the case. The panel additionally cited eight Lamberth decisions that have been overturned on appeal, including contempt citations against four Cabinet secretaries, three at Interior and one at Treasury. A catalogue of Lamberth's missteps in each of the eight reversals is included in the panel's written ruling. ''Ten judges of this court have heard one or more of these appeals. Not one has dissented.''

Also July 11, the appellate court restored Interior to the Internet, vacating a Lamberth order that it disconnect its IIM-related computers over concerns about the security of its systems. (In a statement released the same day, namesake plaintiff Elouise Cobell announced that that particular decision will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.)

One school of thought among Washingtonians who work in Indian affairs is that Lamberth's removal is no real help to Interior, not given the department's legal position and the panel's low opinion of its conduct. Speaking for that viewpoint, Gregory Smith, of Johnston & Associates, said, ''A judge replacing Lamberth is likely to reach the same opinions he did, but without distracting from the merits of the case with inflammatory opinion. Because the facts of the case are with us.''

Another viewpoint is that the learning curve any new judge will encounter in taking up the voluminous case will set back a court settlement by perhaps another decade. ''I think the removal of Lamberth was a wrong decision,'' said Tex Hall, chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara in North Dakota. ''It sends the wrong message to Indians and Americans in a historic case - I think the court system has failed us today. I think we're wasting time with the judicial system, time our elders don't have.''

Hall said Congress must act to settle the case. Bills that would do just that if enacted are before the Senate and the House of Representatives, but at last report neither chamber had taken the plunge of supplying a dollar sum in settlement of monetary losses from the IIM accounts. Hall said the administration of President George Bush may have weighed in against a figure of $6 billion to $8 billion - ''around that'' - adding that he would know more following visits to Capitol Hill that took place after press time.

Anyone who has followed the case is bound to suspect some feeling of vindication was hard to resist at Interior when the decision was announced. But it would not have survived a close reading of the decision. Lamberth takes a thumping, but so do all sides in a case that has generated singular hostility between the litigants. The cause of Lamberth's downfall, the court went out of its way to emphasize, ''is, most certainly, not any redeeming aspect of Interior's behavior as trustee,'' but Lamberth's own intemperate words and ill-founded decisions. Elsewhere it observes that ''Interior's deplorable record deserves condemnation in the strongest terms'' and warns the department against false confidence. ''As the litigation proceeds, the government must remember that although it regularly prevails on appeal, our many decisions in no way change the fact that it remains in breach of its trust responsibilities.''

Beginning on the second page, numerous other passages in the 34-page ruling spell out the fiduciary obligation the government took on when it assumed title to Indian lands and set up shop as a trustee, for Indian individuals, of royalties earned from the lease of their lands and resources. References abound to nearly 100 years of mismanagement, ''the magnitude of government malfeasance,'' ''recalcitrance,'' ''unconscionable delay,'' ''hopelessly inept management'' and ''a serious injustice that has persisted for over a century and that cries out for redress.''

Plaintiff attorneys take a scouring too: they ''would more ably advance their worthy cause,'' the judges advise, ''by focusing their energies on legal issues rather than on attacking the government and its lawyers.''

The ruling concludes by calling for a ''fresh start'' in the case, as well as an expeditious and fair resolution.

 

[wazhazhe]

I think the plaintiffs began considering the eight billion dollar offer after Judge Lamberth was removed from the case.

 

[cloudy]

I think the plaintiffs began considering the eight billion dollar offer after Judge Lamberth was removed from the case.

I haven't seen anything else on it, to be honest, since that ICT article, and it's dated the 14th of this month.

I would be glad to see it settled, but somehow I feel that no matter which way it goes, the plaintiffs will be getting the short end of the stick.