UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 
_________________________________ 
ELOUISE PEPION COBELL, et al., 
Plaintiffs, 
v. 
)
)
)
)
)
) 
GALE A. NORTON, Secretary of the ) 
Interior, et al., 
)
)
) 
Defendants. 
_________________________________) 
DEFENDANTS' REPLY MEMORANDUM IN FURTHER SUPPORT 
OF THEIR MOTION TO STRIKE PLAINTIFFS' "EMERGENCY NOTICE" 
Defendants have moved to strike an "emergency notice" filed by Plaintiffs because it is 
wholly lacking in supporting evidence and contains derogatory remarks aimed at Interior 
officials.1 Plaintiffs' Notice seeks no relief, and consists of nothing more than two letters that 
contain unsworn allegations from anonymous sources. In response to our motion, Plaintiffs leave 
these defects unremedied and again fail to submit anything of substance in support of their 
notice.2 Instead, Plaintiffs refer to the anonymous allegations they have submitted as "powerful 
evidence." Plaintiffs' Opposition at 2. The notice should be stricken.3 
1 See Defendants' Motion to Strike Plaintiffs' "Emergency Notice" (filed May 12, 
2004) ("Motion to Strike"); Emergency Notice of Individual Indian Trust Records in Imminent 
Risk of Destruction and Loss (filed April 28, 2004) ("Plaintiffs' Notice"). 
2 See Plaintiffs' Opposition to Defendants' Motion to Strike Plaintiffs' "Emergency 
Notice" (filed May 24, 2004) ("Plaintiffs' Opposition") at 2. 
3 Plaintiffs' Opposition also lacked a proposed order in violation of Local Civil Rule 7(c), 
which requires that "each motion and opposition shall be accompanied by a proposed order." 
Case No. 1:96CV01285 
(Judge Lamberth)
ARGUMENT 
Plaintiffs have made their position clear: that unsworn, anonymous and unverifiable 
allegations should be treated as evidentiary fact. They seek to defend this untenable contention 
by demanding an evidentiary rebuttal by Defendants to every unsupported and anonymous 
charge Plaintiffs make. See Plaintiffs' Opposition at 3 ("Where is the rebuttal? Where is the 
disclaimer affidavit . . .? . . . Where is a shred of competent evidence . . .? . . . ."). Simply put, 
Plaintiffs have it all wrong. Our legal system does not treat incognito allegations as "powerful 
evidence." Nor does it require a defendant to provide an evidentiary response to unsupported and 
unverifiable hearsay charges cast by a plaintiff. 
Factual allegations filed with the Court must have evidentiary support. Fed. R. Civ. P. 
11(b) (attorneys or parties filing papers with the Court are certifying that, inter alia, "the 
allegations and other factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, 
are likely to have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or 
discovery"). Yet, now challenged to support their bare charges, Plaintiffs have come forward 
with no substantiation at all. It is thus apparent that Plaintiffs' counsel filed their notice without 
any inquiry into whether the allegations were true or not, seeking instead to compel Interior to 
prove or disprove the charges. Plaintiffs' confounded approach must be rejected. 
Plaintiffs do not dispute that, in addition to being facially incompetent as an evidentiary 
matter, their notice also contains unwarranted personal attacks on Interior employees and places 
inappropriate racial remarks in the record. See Plaintiffs' Notice, Ex. 1 at 2. Instead, they evade 
the issue by feigning an inability to determine what portions of the anonymous letter attached to 
their notice contain the derogatory remarks. Plaintiffs' Opposition at 7. Their approach rings 
hollow, for although we declined to repeat the slurs included in Plaintiffs' Notice, our motion 
2
papers included a precise citation to the exhibit and page that contained the offending language. 
See Motion to Strike at 3, n. 5 (citing Plaintiffs' Notice, Ex. 1 at 2). 
As made clear in our motion papers, because Plaintiffs put forth no evidence and sought 
no relief, their notice warrants no substantive response and should be stricken. Motion to Strike 
at 4. Nevertheless, we submitted with our motion the Department of the Interior's ("Interior") 
response to the union letter that was attached to Plaintiffs' Notice. Id. at 4-5, Exh. 1. We did so 
for the Court's information, and because the Plaintiffs failed to include it with their notice.4 
Flailing for some basis on which to moor their incompetent notice, they suggest that Interior's 
response somehow relieves them of the obligation to provide evidentiary support for the factual 
claims they make. See Plaintiffs' Opposition at 4. It does not. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 11(b)(3). 
Rather, it demonstrates only that Interior is taking appropriate steps to address issues that arise in 
connection with its recordkeeping obligations, even when those issues derive from unknown 
sources and arise in the context of labor posturing. 
4 Plaintiffs' contention that Interior somehow tried to "conceal" its response to the 
union letter lacks any basis in fact or common sense, particularly given that Plaintiffs themselves 
omitted Interior's response from the notice they filed with the Court. And, putting aside the 
dubious suggestion that labor matters falling exclusively within Interior's province must be 
reported to the Court, Interior informed the Court, in its Seventeenth Quarterly Report, that it had 
received the union letter and had responded to the allegations raised therein. See Status Report 
to the Court Number Seventeen (filed May 3, 2004) at 32. 
3
CONCLUSION 
For all of the foregoing reasons, Defendants respectfully request that the Court issue an 
Order granting their Motion to Strike Plaintiffs' "Emergency Notice." 
Dated: June 4, 2004 
Respectfully submitted, 
ROBERT D. McCALLUM, JR. 
Associate Attorney General 
PETER D. KEISLER 
Assistant Attorney General 
STUART E. SCHIFFER 
Deputy Assistant Attorney General 
J. CHRISTOPHER KOHN 
Director 
/s/ Sandra P. Spooner 
SANDRA P. SPOONER 
D.C. Bar No. 261495 
Deputy Director 
JOHN T. STEMPLEWICZ 
Senior Trial Counsel 
Commercial Litigation Branch 
Civil Division 
P.O. Box 875 
Ben Franklin Station 
Washington, D.C. 20044-0875 
(202) 514-7194 
4
CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE 
I hereby certify that, on June 4, 2004 the foregoing Defendants' Reply Memorandum in 
Further Support of Their Motion to Strike Plaintiffs' "Emergency Notice" was served by 
Electronic Case Filing, and on the following who is not registered for Electronic Case Filing, by 
facsimile: 
Earl Old Person (Pro se) 
Blackfeet Tribe 
P.O. Box 850 
Browning, MT 59417 
Fax (406) 338-7530 
/s/ Kevin P. Kingston 
Kevin P. Kingston