there mr koppel proceed when you're ready thank you your honor may it please the court i'm with the department of justice and i'm representing in the united states in this case the district court erroneous lee held compliance with the treaty terms itself and subsequently after the federal government an act that the snyder act and the indian health care improvement act through the through the indian health service which provides  health services to the entire american indian and alaska native community in excess of two billion dollars a year with with more than six hundred dollars hospitals that mean you can either have the trust corpus in some situations or you can have a trust obligation that flows from a treaty and don't we have the latter arguably here while your honor certainly we read those two  requirements as being in conjunction that there that there has been both requirements have to be met there has to be a trust corpus as well as the as well as the rights creating a body of law and that's why that's  why the court used the use the term nor is the nectar but to the extent that there that certainly a treaty can give rise to two to  repeatedly characterize that there must be asset there must be in property that is being managed by the united states on behalf of the indians then in addition to that the also has to be rights creating a right creating body of law be it statutory or regulatory or treaty now here there's no neither of the revealing because that case also invites involve a suit tribe which is a signatory to this to this treaty and and it involves the closure of an emergency room as this one and there the court held  additional problem with the with the with the district courts declaratory judgment which is and which is an advisory opinion but the court may not address that that if it if it further questions at this point i would reserve the balance of my time for republicans well i do have won if you look at the language that was used in the yankton suit tried case one of the things that is apparent in that language is that  the tribe failed to allege that there was any statutory or treaty obligation that could be characterized as a breach of trust or fiduciary duty and here obviously that is specifically alleged is the a trust obligation under under that under the terms of the relevant and controlling supreme court and the th circuit precedent it's just there was a treaty there there is a treaty obligation case law so again unless there are further questions i would i would reserve the balance of my time try along with other tribes entered into the treaty of for learning with the united states along with the station of hostilities the united states acquired vast territories of land in that treaty and in exchange the united states made a number of promises including the promise of the issue in this case i'm not going to spend my time today rehashing the tragic state of health care on the road but reservation i think the three volume of appendix here are thoroughly documented those facts and indeed much of that evidence comes from the federal government itself instead this case is focused on three narrow legal issues the government has offered to avoid its treaty and statutory promise and we heard my colleague talk primarily about what the trust corpus issue there's also the scope of the treaty duty and the issue of redress ability i'll go through each of those but ultimately i think each issue comes back to the same central theme a party to a treaty with the federal government can get a declaration of its rights in federal court whether the government complied with certain statutory consultation obligations prior to changing services a change in emergency department to an urgent care clinic that's not what we have here and furthermore the primary basis for the holding in yankton sue was was preclusion that's also not an issue here the only extent to which the court in yankton sue addressed the trust for treaty issue was in the very final paragraph of that opinion and violations and his judge cole was picked up on the opinion distinguishes between trust obligations where the government manages resources and where you may need to trust corpus and then a violation of a statutory or treaty obligation that's a and forty four dollars of the opinion and all of that supports the idea that a trustee can and often does exist where it's created by a treaty or by statute and that's separate and independent from the existence of any resources managed by the government there's no reason to read those requirements conjunctive i would point the court especially to the white because if i don't case where that court there did find a statutory trust duty based on the same government was simply managing timber resources to prevent their alienation here we have we have affirmative commitments both in the treaty and numerous subsequent statues that provide obligations to provide health care i'd like to talk next a little bit about standing and redress ability at its core there's nothing unusual about this lawsuit parties ask for courts to interpret documents all the time insurance contracts or statutes or treaties and courts that define the rights and responsibilities of the parties and that can even be done prospectively before of reach occurs the district court's opinion here was not an advisory opinion simply because it wasn't based on hypothetical facts of facts here are very real and very well documented and very tragic i point the court to join appendix at page seven hundred and seventy three for just one among many examples i'm going to quote the impacts of these the fissions these are not theoretical these persistent failures have led to unnecessary suffering by patients by families and by whole communities in fact they have led to multiple patient deaths close quote again that's just one example from the undisputed out of events and that comes from the federal government itself so this lawsuit is not an advisory opinion about events that may hypothetically occur in the future it's about what already happened the care the government was providing at the rose hospital was so poor that it constituted an immediate danger to patients and the public and resulted in the facility being shut out i would also point out that the relief granted here is sufficiently specific and conclusive to redress the treaty interpretation issue indian health care and that's exactly what we need here the district court's judgment has real meaning simply the confirmation that health care is not a gratuitous appropriation that's benevolently conferred upon the tribe but it's instead a treaty right given in exchange for peace and land that's momentous and this declaration it won't solve every problem with i but it will directly in conclusively solve major harm the harm that the government doesn't recognize that it has a treaty obligation to provide adequate health care the trial and judicial confirmation of that right allows the try to hold political actors accountable when they finally live up to those promises i do want to talk in my remaining time about the scope of the treaty obligation and i'll start by observing that this report properly recognised the liberal canons of construction that favor the tribe treaties are construed in favor of the tribes and the terms are interpreted as the as the indians would have understood them themselves so here are the treaty require the government to provide this physician provide a house for the physician and provide sufficient funds annually to employ the physician so d when we look at the language of the treaty itself providing the annual employment of the physician means committing to provide care and it's reasonable for the district court when you look at the treaty itself the tribal signatories signed their name with an x they couldn't read in english and this treaty was written down in english that's precisely one of the reasons that courts apply the liberal canons of construction in favor of template i mean the text of the treaty still has a physician that you are and there are other instances where i forget if there are multiple blacksmiths but i certainly teachers  this in this treaty there were actually a number of different sections talking about when you needed to expand and provide more teachers how for example the united states could withdraw a physician after ten years but had to provide additional funding for education so i think that because of the different treatment between education and health care that there's not a direct parallel there that the court can use to to to so limit the obligation under the government for example of provided green production facilities or that's right doesn't the same logic understandably health care is a critical easy but under the conservative up the  treaty why doesn't that flights you why didn't the trust obligation extend to the other professionals i think the best answer that question your honor is because first of all there's been no evidence that the government you know withdrew from from health care as it could have under the treaty you didn't do that because of course specifically noted that i don't know whether the federal government has specifically withdrawn the miller or specifically withdrawn blacksmith that was never presented to the district court so so we just don't have that information in the record so do i think that we could declare those duties also extended on this record no we couldn't but the key difference with health care is that not only is it in this treaty from eight hundred and sixty eight  subsequent recognized in statute after statute after statute and not just provide a single physician but to provide health care doesn't that indicate simply that the government went beyond its treaty obligations and do suggest that those sorts of general statutes cannot impose trustor treaty obligations on the federal government no your honor i would frame it a little differently i think that those statutes reflect how one part of the treat understands  obligations and so they are not merely gratuitous appropriations on top of a single position that they all the present that is the party the other party to treat is here suggesting that they don't understand it that way well the other part the treaty in this sense of arguing this lawsuit is taking one position but i would argue that the congress of the united states has taken a much different position and we've seen that in report after report after report and study after study and hearing after hearing where congress has reaffirmed its obligations by this health care and i would also point out your honor that go a whole lot right minute i mean if you think about about what that means is that that's got to mean that somehow there's a treaty obligation plus and that plus has to come from you know probably its origins would be in the snyder act right and then the subsequent indian health act right and we're competent health care right how do you get there and i'm just that's what you know as i struggle with that with the analysis that's the piece i'm looking at because i'm thinking that you know you can look at the snyder actiq and look at the indian health service as it's been managed and run but we have case law that's floating around out there that says that the that those are not sufficient to create this kind of obligations all your obligation has to reside somewhere in obligation right there is an obligation there or whatever maybe there's a also a series of statutes the snyder acting health care improvement act and later the affordable care act and those statues i actually i do believe those treaties the interpretation that treaty rather is informed by the subsequent passage of the statutes that evidence congress is understanding of its obligation to provide health care that st arose in the  treaty and finally i would say your honor to the extent that the th circuit decision conflicts with white this court needs to follow white in california which is in the you know ultimately was an th circuit decision where the th circuit adopted the reasoning of the district court and found so hearing no further questions i've run under a minute here on my time so i will just briefly conclude the federal government made promises to the trial and the tribes entitled to have a federal court construe and clair an eriksson's i would just i would emphasize that what the what the point of is trying to do here is to graft on two very specific treaty obligations a  a a broad and a in trust law a duty that simply does not exist the the indian canon is not applicable here because the parties would not have they would not have understood it neither the united states nor or nor the sioux tribe would have understood it to involve a health care system which is the term health care is not even used in the in the treaty it simply refers to in the snyder act and the ends and the indian health care improvement act are simply broaden aspirational statements as the just record recognized and they cannot they do not give rise to to a trust law duty and the district court even even recognized that it was just deciding this case on the basis of the treaty claim that the treaty gave rise  other other service providers such as miller's blacksmiths teachers etc so just to say that to extrapolate from from the language providing a physician and a physician's house is looking suddenly at the treaty just a sober minute there we take an approach we're going to take an approach of looking at obligations under the treaty is a position of the united states  not to exceed three thousand dollars well your honor certainly that the united states is providing infinitely more than that through through the statutory discretionary statutory programs what those fully those fully satisfy any obligation created by the treaty the treaty of course by its terms which is as the parties understood in eight hundred and sixty eight dollars and that is the relevant time required only a single physician and the physicians house and of appropriations for the entire sue nation and so there is no there can be no there can be no doubt that the united states is fully satisfying the and and abstract declaratory judgment and there it doesn't even it doesn't resolve any specific concrete dispute between the parties so this is just an open ended claim to