Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-14-05119/USCOURTS-caDC-14-05119-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 890
Nature of Suit: Other Statutory Actions
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 20, 2015 Decided September 18, 2015

No. 14-5119

ELOUISE PEPION COBELL, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

SALLY JEWELL, SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR, ET AL.,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:96-cv-01285)

David C. Smith argued the cause for appellants. With 

him on the briefs were William E. Dorris, Adam H. Charnes, 

and Elizabeth L. Winters.

Stephen J. Vaughan was on the brief for amicus curiae 

Indian Land Tenure Foundation in support of appellants.

Alisa B. Klein, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, 

argued the cause for appellees. With her on the brief were 

Ronald C. Machen, Jr., U.S. Attorney at the time the brief 

was filed, and Beth S. Brinkmann, Deputy Assistant Attorney 

General, and Mark B. Stern, Attorney.

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Before: HENDERSON and MILLETT, Circuit Judges, and 

GINSBURG, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge MILLETT.

MILLETT, Circuit Judge: This is the eleventh appeal to

this court in nearly two decades of litigation arising out of the

Department of the Interior’s misadministration of Native 

American trust accounts and an ensuing complex, nationwide 

litigation and settlement. As the case winds down, the class 

action representatives have appealed the district court’s denial 

of compensation for expenses incurred during the litigation 

and settlement process. 

We affirm the district court’s denial of additional 

compensation for expenses for the lead plaintiff, Elouise 

Cobell, because the district court expressly wrapped those 

costs into an incentive award given to her earlier. We 

conclude, however, that the district court erred in 

categorically rejecting as procedurally barred the class 

representatives’ claim for the recovery of third-party 

payments, and remand for the district court to apply its 

accumulated expertise and discretion to the question of 

whether third-party compensation can and should be paid 

under the Settlement Agreement.

I

Background

This long-running litigation saga has been documented in 

numerous decisions of this court over the course of multiple 

appeals. See Cobell v. Kempthorne, 455 F.3d 317, 330–331 

(D.C. Cir. 2006) (cataloging this court’s decisions in eight 

appeals); Cobell v. Salazar, 573 F.3d 808 (D.C. Cir. 2009); 

Cobell v. Salazar, 679 F.3d 909 (D.C. Cir. 2012). 

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In brief, five named plaintiffs (“Class Representatives”) 

initiated a class action lawsuit in 1996 seeking to compel the 

United States Department of the Interior to perform a 

historical accounting of the hundreds of millions of dollars 

held by the Department in trust for Native Americans. That 

accounting was required by the American Indian Trust Fund 

Management Reform Act of 1994, Pub. L. No. 103-412, 108 

Stat. 4239. In 2001, we affirmed the district court’s 

conclusion that the Department had unreasonably and 

unlawfully delayed that statutorily mandated accounting. 

Cobell v. Norton, 240 F.3d 1081, 1105 (D.C. Cir. 2001). For 

the next decade, the parties, the district court, and Congress 

all struggled to determine how the Department could feasibly 

discharge its legal duty to conduct an accounting of the 

hundreds of thousands of “Individual Indian Money” trust 

accounts under its control. That would have been a herculean 

task under the best conditions, but the difficulty of the 

Department’s charge was compounded by its unreliable 

records of the identity and location of the original account 

holders, more than a century of deficient bookkeeping by the 

Department, and decades of “fractionation” as allotment 

interests passed from one generation to the next. See Cobell 

v. Kempthorne, 569 F. Supp. 2d 223, 226–227 (D.D.C. 2008) 

(chronicling the accounting problems associated with 

maintaining a “121-year old perpetual trust, managed by civil 

servants, with rapidly multiplying beneficiaries and a variety 

of ever-changing assets”), vacated and remanded by Cobell v. 

Salazar, 573 F.3d 808 (D.C. Cir. 2009).1

 1 “Fractionation” occurs when “Indian allotments are divided and 

divided again by inheritance through succeeding generations.” 

Cobell v. Kempthorne, 532 F. Supp. 2d 37, 41 (D.D.C. 2008), 

vacated and remanded by Cobell v. Salazar, 573 F.3d 808 (D.C. 

Cir. 2009).

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We pick up the story in 2010 with the enactment of the 

Claims Resolution Act (“Claims Act”), Pub. L. No. 111-291, 

124 Stat. 3064 (2010). The Claims Act authorized, ratified, 

and confirmed the parties’ comprehensive Settlement 

Agreement resolving the class action litigation. See id.

§ 101(c)(1). The Claims Act also referenced a separate 

agreement on attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses that the 

parties had negotiated (“Fee Agreement”). Id. § 101(a). 

Under the Settlement Agreement, each member of what 

was known as the “Historical Accounting Class” received 

$1,000 in lieu of an actual accounting. The money would 

come from the Accounting/Trust Administration Fund, which 

was to be created by the government’s payment of $1.412 

billion into a settlement account. See Cobell v. Salazar, 679 

F.3d 909, 914 (D.C. Cir. 2012).

2

 A separate class, known as 

the “Trust Administration Class,” received a baseline payment 

of $500 and a prorated share of any funds left over in the 

settlement account after specified payments were made, 

including attorneys’ fees and awards to the Class 

Representatives. Id. at 914–915. In exchange, all class 

members released the Department of Interior from liability

arising out of prior mismanagement of their trust accounts. 

 2

 The “Historical Accounting Class” consisted of individual Indian 

beneficiaries who had an Individual Indian Money account (with at 

least one cash transaction) between October 25, 1994 (the 

enactment date of the American Indian Trust Fund Management

Reform Act) and September 30, 2009 (the “Record Date” of the 

parties’ Settlement Agreement). This class did not include account 

holders who had filed an individual claim for a historical 

accounting prior to the filing of the parties’ original complaint. 

Settlement Agreement ¶ A.16.

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Id.3 Plaintiffs inform us that, to date, “91% of all settlement 

funds have been distributed.” Cobell Supp. Br. 4.

The Settlement Agreement separately provided for the 

recovery of “attorneys’ fees, expenses, and costs” “for Class 

Counsel.” Settlement Agreement ¶ J(1). The Agreement 

required the Class Representatives to file a notice with the 

district court, prior to the preliminary hearing on approval of 

the Settlement Agreement, that would disclose the up-to-date 

amount of attorneys’ fees, expenses, and costs requested. Id.

¶ J(2). Post-settlement amounts were governed by a separate 

procedure. Id. ¶ J(4). The Settlement Agreement further 

provided that the amount ultimately to be awarded would be 

“within the discretion of the [District] Court in accordance 

with controlling law[.]” Id. ¶ J(5).

The Fee Agreement mirrored that structure, separating 

pre- and post-settlement requests for attorneys’ fees, 

expenses, and costs. Fee Agreement ¶¶ 4–5. In the Fee 

Agreement, the plaintiffs agreed not to seek more than $99.9 

million above amounts previously paid by the government, 

and the government agreed that it would not argue for less 

than $50 million above those amounts. Id. at ¶ 4(a)–(b).

The Claims Act also authorized the district court to grant 

“incentive awards” to the Class Representatives. Claims Act

 3 The “Trust Administration Class” included individual Indian 

beneficiaries who had Individual Indian Money accounts between 

1985 and the date of the proposed amended complaint, as well as 

individuals who, as of the Record Date, “had a recorded or other 

demonstrable ownership interest in land[.]” Settlement Agreement 

¶ A.35. This class excluded those who, prior to the filing of the 

amended complaint, had filed actions on their own for claims that 

otherwise would have fallen under the claim release entered into by 

the Trust Administration Class. Id.

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§ 101(g)(1). The Settlement Agreement that was ratified and 

confirmed by the Claims Act, see id. §§ 101(a)(8), (c)(1),

elaborated that the “petition for incentive awards” shall 

“includ[e] expenses and costs[] of the Class Representatives.” 

Settlement Agreement ¶ K.2. The Settlement Agreement 

recorded the plaintiffs’ estimate that the total amount of the 

expenses and costs requested would be “in the range of $15 

million above those paid by Defendants to date.” Id. ¶ K.1. 

In January 2011, the plaintiffs filed both a Petition for 

Class Counsel’s Fees, Expenses and Costs Through 

Settlement, and a Petition for Class Representatives’ Incentive 

Awards and Expenses. In the Attorneys’ Fees Petition, the 

plaintiffs requested $99.9 million in attorneys’ fees “in 

accordance with the literal provisions” of the Fee Agreement, 

but argued “that a fee award of $223 million, plus expenses 

and costs of $1,276,598, is in accordance with controlling law 

and within this Court’s discretion.” J.A. 748. The 

government argued that the total award should be limited to 

$50 million.

In the Incentive Awards Petition, the Class 

Representatives requested a total of $2.5 million in incentive 

awards for themselves, and an additional $10.5 million in 

“reimbursement” for expenses and costs incurred in 

prosecuting the litigation. The government contended that the 

Class Representatives should not receive more than a total 

award of $1 million to cover both personal expenses and 

incentives. The government also argued that the additional 

$10.5 million should be denied because it was for the 

expenses of third parties, not those of the Class 

Representatives.

The district court held a fairness hearing on June 20, 

2011. At the close of the hearing, the court granted four of 

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the Class Representatives a total of $2.5 million in incentive 

awards.

4

 But the court denied their separate request for 

reimbursement of expenses and costs. With respect to the 

$390,000 that Ms. Cobell said she had spent out of her 

personal funds, the district court ruled that amount should be 

reimbursed “out of her sizeable” $2 million “incentive 

award.” J.A. 1761. The court then denied the additional 

$10.5 million in requested expenses on the ground that the 

expenses were not incurred by the Class Representatives, and 

the court otherwise lacked authority to award expenses paid 

by third parties. The court also awarded $99 million in 

“attorneys’ fees, expenses and costs.” J.A. 1763.

The plaintiffs filed a motion for reconsideration relating 

to the denial of expenses on June 27, 2011, one week after the 

court’s oral ruling at the fairness hearing, but before the 

district court entered a written order reflecting its rulings.

On July 27, 2011, the district court entered a written 

order granting final approval to the settlement and setting 

forth the rulings made during the fairness hearing. That order 

reflected the grant of incentive awards to the four Class 

Representatives, and the denial of an additional $10.5 million 

in expenses “because plaintiffs have not shown that these are 

expenses or liabilities of the Class Representatives.” J.A. 

1790. The written order made clear that the plaintiffs’ 

pending motion for reconsideration would “be the subject of a 

further order,” and otherwise made no reference to its 

authority to reimburse third-party expenses incurred by Class 

 4 The court denied any incentive award for the fifth Class 

Representative, Earl Old Person, because he had been removed in 

2003 for failing to satisfy his duties as a class representative. J.A. 

1761.

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Representatives or Class Counsel. J.A. 1790 n.2. The district 

court entered final judgment on August 4, 2011.

Two years later, the plaintiffs filed a “Notice of 

Supplemental Information and Correction” amending their 

still-undecided motion for reconsideration of the denial of 

expenses. The Notice included exhibits and “correct[ed]” the 

amount sought by adding a nearly $500,000 loan from the 

Indian Land Tenure Foundation to the Blackfeet Reservation 

Development Fund. J.A. 1796.

On October 16, 2011, the lead plaintiff, Elouise Cobell, 

died. Counsel did not substitute her estate or anyone else in 

her place prior to the district court’s decision or the filing of a

notice of appeal.

Almost three years after the motion for reconsideration

was originally filed, the district court denied reconsideration. 

Cobell v. Jewell, 29 F. Supp. 3d 18, 19 (D.D.C. 2014). 

Viewing the plaintiffs’ motion as a Rule 59(e) post-decisional 

motion, the district court first held that the argument that the 

Class Representatives were personally liable for some of the 

$10.5 million in requested expenses was procedurally barred 

because they could—and should—have raised that new 

argument before the court ruled on the Class Representatives’ 

petition. See id. at 23. The court further ruled that, even if 

the claim were properly before it, the plaintiffs had failed to 

show that the Class Representatives were in fact personally 

liable for the claimed expenses. See id. at 23–25. Instead, the 

district court concluded that those expenses, if recoverable at 

all, were payable out of the $99 million award for Class 

Counsels’ fees, expenses, and costs. Id. at 24–25. Finally,

the district court declined to consider as untimely raised an

argument that the Settlement Agreement provided for

payment of third party costs and expenses “wholly 

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independent of, and in addition to, expenses and costs of 

Class Counsel.” Id. at 25.

The plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal from both the 

original July 27, 2011, written order and the denial of

reconsideration.

II

Jurisdictional Analysis

Before we can proceed to the merits of the appeal, we 

must be confident of our authority to decide the case at all, 

whether or not jurisdictional challenges are pressed by a 

party. See, e.g., City of New York v. National R.R. Passenger 

Corp., 776 F.3d 11, 14 (D.C. Cir. 2015).

Timeliness of Appeal

The government’s opening brief hinted that the appeal is 

jurisdictionally barred as untimely, while its post-argument 

supplemental brief offered a more full-throated timeliness 

objection. The argument turns on the differing operations of 

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 54(b) and 59(e). In brief, 

when cases involve multiple parties or multiple claims, Rule 

54(b) allows a litigant to move for reconsideration or 

modification of a district court’s interlocutory order disposing

of “fewer than all the claims or the rights and liabilities of 

fewer than all the parties” “at any time” before the court’s 

entry of final judgment. Because Rule 54(b) operates while a 

case is still ongoing in district court and before any appealable 

final judgment has been entered, such motions for 

reconsideration, of course, do not toll the time for taking an 

appeal because the clock has not even started ticking. See, 

e.g., Goodman v. Johnson, 471 F. App’x 114, 2012 WL 

1111106, at *1 (4th Cir. April 4, 2012) (A “motion seeking 

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reconsideration, filed under Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b), [does] not 

qualify to toll the thirty-day time limit.”); Schaeffer v. First 

Nat’l Bank of Lincolnwood, 465 F.2d 234, 236 (7th Cir. 1972) 

(Fed R. App. P. 4(a) “provides that certain motions, not 

including motions for a Rule 54(b) order, toll the running of 

[the period in which to notice an appeal] during their 

pendency.”).

Rule 59(e), in contrast, is a motion for reconsideration 

that is filed only after the district court’s entry of a final 

judgment. Because the entry of a final judgment starts the 

time running on the filing of an appeal, a Rule 59(e) motion 

stops the appeal clock until after the motion is decided. See 

Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(4)(A); Center for Nuclear Responsibility, 

Inc. v. United States Nuclear Regulatory Comm’n, 781 F.2d 

935, 940 (D.C. Cir. 1986).5

The Class Representatives’ notice of appeal was 

unquestionably timely to appeal the March 20, 2014, order 

denying reconsideration of the claims for expenses. The 

question is whether they could also appeal the July 2011 order 

and August 2011 judgment that first denied the expense 

awards.

The government’s initial brief suggested that, given the 

passage of time, the plaintiffs could only appeal the July 2011 

order if their motion for reconsideration were brought under 

 5 Adding to the layers, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 58(e) 

permits a district court to treat a timely motion for attorneys’ fees as 

a Rule 59 motion tolling the time to file an appeal. See Fed. R. Civ. 

P. 58(e). A district court must affirmatively order such treatment 

before the time that a notice of appeal becomes effective, however, 

and no such order was issued here. See id.

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Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), rather than Rule 54(b), 

because only the former would have tolled the time for 

appeal. The government’s supplemental brief goes further 

and argues that, because the August 2011 entry of final 

judgment approving the Settlement Agreement was treated as 

a final judgment by the parties and this court on appeal, see 

Cobell v. Salazar, 679 F.3d 909, 916 (D.C. Cir. 2012), the 

plaintiffs can no longer bring an appeal from the district 

court’s incentive award determination at all, notwithstanding 

the pendency of their motion for reconsideration at the time 

that judgment was entered.

Neither timeliness objection succeeds. An award of costs 

and expenses at the end of litigation, like an award of 

attorneys’ fees, is not reviewable on appeal until final in 

district court. And as a general matter, “an order finding 

liability for attorney’s fees” or litigation expenses “is not final 

until the amount has been determined.” Gilda Marx, Inc. v. 

Wildwood Exercise, Inc., 85 F.3d 675, 677 (D.C. Cir. 1996); 

see also Father Flanagan’s Boys Home v. District of 

Columbia Government, No. 02-7157, 2003 WL 1907987, at 

*1 (D.C. Cir. April 17, 2003) (unpublished) (sua sponte 

dismissing appeal from order imposing costs and fees 

“[b]ecause the district court ha[d] not yet issued an order 

determining the amount to be awarded”); Shields v. 

Washington Bancorporation, 25 F.3d 1115, 1994 WL 

266525, at *1 (D.C. Cir. June 2, 1994) (unpublished) (same 

for attorneys’ “fees and expenses”).

That finality was plainly lacking here in July and August 

2011 because the district court’s written order expressly stated 

that the then-pending motion for reconsideration of the denial 

of “Class Representatives’ Expense Application * * * will be 

the subject of a further order.” J.A. 1790. That is about as 

non-final as an initial ruling can get. And the formal entry of 

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judgment on August 4, 2011 said nothing about the 

reconsideration motion, leaving it pending and unresolved.

The parties’ appeal of the final judgment approving the 

Settlement Agreement could not by itself infuse a stillpending issue with finality. The Supreme Court has enforced 

a “bright-line rule * * * that a decision on the merits is a ‘final 

decision’ for purposes of [28 U.S.C.] § 1291 whether or not 

there remains for adjudication a request for attorney’s fees [or 

expenses] attributable to the case.” Budinich v. Becton 

Dickinson & Co., 486 U.S. 196, 202–203 (1988); Buchanan v. 

Stanships, Inc., 485 U.S. 265, 268–269 (1988) (“[A] request 

for costs raises issues wholly collateral to the judgment in the 

main cause of action[.]”); see also Shultz v. Crowley, 802 F.2d 

498, 505 (D.C. Cir. 1986). That rule holds whether the fees

and expenses sought are authorized by contract or by statute. 

Ray Haluch Gravel Co. v. Central Pension Fund of the Int’l 

Union of Operating Engineers & Participating Employers, 

134 S. Ct. 773, 780 (2014); Lobatz v. U.S. West Cellular of 

Cal., Inc., 222 F.3d 1142, 1144–1145 (9th Cir. 2000) (order 

approving class settlement was final notwithstanding still 

pending request for attorneys’ fees and costs). It was thus 

entirely appropriate for the appeal of the settlement approval 

to proceed while the award of costs and expenses awaited 

final resolution.6

 6 To the extent that plaintiffs’ counsel’s arguments during the 

appeal of the judgment approving the Settlement Agreement 

suggested that the expense award was final (an issue on which we 

do not opine), attorney arguments cannot create a finality that the 

district court has withheld. The government, of course, is free to 

make any judicial estoppel arguments it considers relevant in 

district court. See, e.g., New Hampshire v. Maine, 532 U.S. 742, 

749 (2001) (“[J]udicial estoppel[] ‘generally prevents a party from 

prevailing in one phase of a case on an argument and then relying 

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Ripeness

At oral argument, plaintiffs’ counsel acknowledged that 

all class members that can be located must be compensated 

before an expense award could be paid out, suggesting the

possibility that there might not ultimately be sufficient funds 

to pay the expense award even if plaintiffs prevailed on 

appeal. See Oral Arg. Tr. 15:2–16:17. That raised the 

question of whether the appeal was ripe for disposition since 

the court would have been deciding the legal basis for a 

payment that, on counsel’s telling, might never happen.

That would be a jurisdictional problem. “Put simply, 

‘Article III courts should not make decisions unless they have 

to.’” VanderKam v. VanderKam, 776 F.3d 883, 888 (D.C. 

Cir. 2015) (quoting National Treasury Emps. Union v. United 

States, 101 F.3d 1423, 1431 (D.C. Cir. 1996)). Ensuring that 

issues presented are ripe for decision protects against the 

“premature adjudication of ‘abstract disagreements’” and 

“reserves judicial power for resolution of concrete and ‘fully 

crystalized’ disputes.” VanderKam, 776 F.3d at 888. In 

deciding whether a case is ripe, we consider “(1) ‘the fitness 

of the issues for judicial decision’ and (2) ‘the hardship to the 

parties of withholding court consideration.’” Id. (quoting

Abbott Laboratories v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 149 (1967)).

The “fitness” prong “look[s] to see whether the issue is 

purely legal, whether consideration of the issue would benefit 

from a more concrete setting, and whether the agency’s action 

is sufficiently final.” National Ass’n of Home Builders v. 

United States Army Corps of Engineers, 440 F.3d 459, 463–

 

on a contradictory argument to prevail in another phase.’”) (quoting 

Pegram v. Herdrich, 530 U.S. 211, 227 n.8 (2000)).

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464 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (quoting Village of Bensenville v. FAA, 

376 F.3d 1114, 1120 (D.C. Cir. 2004)). That test is satisfied 

here. The issue of whether the Settlement and Fee 

Agreements permit the reimbursement of third-party costs is a 

question of contract interpretation and, to the extent 

incorporated into the Claims Act, statutory construction. 

Those are both legal questions that we review de novo. Segar 

v. Mukasey, 508 F.3d 16, 22 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (contract 

interpretation); United States v. Hite, 769 F.3d 1154, 1160 

(D.C. Cir. 2014) (statutory interpretation). In addition, the

district court has conclusively denied the requested expense 

award, and there is nothing in the ongoing fund-distribution 

proceedings in district court that would affect the plaintiffs’ 

entitlement to the requested compensation or would otherwise 

provide a more concrete setting for deciding the issue.

As to the hardship prong, the plaintiffs’ supplemental 

briefing advised that $55 million has already been set aside 

for expenses separate and apart from the still-undistributed 

funds, Cobell Supp. Br. 9 n.8, so the availability of funds to 

pay an expense award, were plaintiffs to prevail, no longer is 

an issue, see also Gov’t Supp. Br. 6 (acknowledging that 

“there should be funds available to make such an award”). 

That means that, in resolving this appeal, we would not be 

“spending our scarce resources on what amounts to shadow 

boxing.” Alcoa Power Generating Inc. v. FERC, 643 F.3d 

963, 967 (D.C. Cir. 2011). Moreover, if successful, the 

plaintiffs would be able to seek an “immediate, concrete, and 

valuable benefit.” Vanderkam, 776 F.3d at 889. In contrast, 

delaying the claim indefinitely until every last plaintiff is paid 

from an entirely separate pool of funds, especially after nearly 

two decades of litigation already, would constitute a material 

hardship. For those reasons, the plaintiffs’ challenge is ripe 

for appellate review.

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Finality

Even though the appeal was timely filed and the issues 

raised are ripe, our jurisdiction is generally limited to 

reviewing final judgments. See, e.g., Blue v. District of 

Columbia Public Schools, 764 F.3d 11, 15 (D.C. Cir. 2014). 

While the district court’s 2014 denial of reconsideration of the 

decision not to award expenses conclusively resolved that

issue, the fight over attorneys’ fees and expenses has not 

entirely wrapped up. Still pending before the district court are 

(i) the claim of an attorney, Mark Kester Brown, to share in 

the fee award already made to class counsel, and (ii) a request 

from class counsel for post-settlement attorneys’ fees and 

expenses. We conclude that neither of those issues deprives 

the expense-award judgment of finality. 

The issue of Attorney Brown’s individual entitlement to 

recover attorneys’ fees based on the scope of his involvement 

in the case is entirely independent of and has no bearing on 

the decision whether to make an expense award to the 

plaintiffs under a distinct provision of the Settlement 

Agreement. See Samuels v. District of Columbia, 70 F.3d 

638, 1995 WL 650158, at *1 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (unpublished) 

(“A post-judgment order is generally not appealable as long 

as any ‘closely related questions or proceedings remain 

pending.’”) (emphasis added) (quoting 15B Wright & Miller, 

Federal Practice & Procedure § 3916, at 356 (2d ed. 1992)).

Equally importantly, Brown’s claim does not seek to alter 

the total amount awarded in attorney’s fees—he simply wants 

a part of the existing pie. Resolution of his claim thus will not 

affect the finality of the overall decision to award specific 

amounts to the attorneys and Class Representatives. See 

Boeing Co. v. Van Gemert, 444 U.S. 472, 481 n.7 (1980) 

(company could appeal order requiring it to pay specified sum 

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to class even when order left undetermined what portion 

would be paid to attorneys, as the company “had no 

cognizable interest in further litigation between the class and 

its lawyers over the amount of the fees ultimately awarded 

from money belonging to the class”).

As to the still pending request for post-settlement fees

and expenses, that too is a separate and distinct legal matter. 

The Settlement Agreement and Fee Agreement both break 

pre- and post-settlement fees and costs out as two independent 

matters. Settlement Agreement ¶¶ J(1), J(4); Fee Agreement 

¶¶ 4, 5. And sensibly so. The pre-settlement fees and costs 

pertain to a finite time and set of proceedings, all of which 

have long-since concluded. Moreover, the order under review 

conclusively resolves the last outstanding issue regarding the 

amount of and entitlement to those pre-settlement fees and 

expenses.

The post-settlement fees and costs, by contrast, could 

continue indefinitely, for as long as the distribution of funds 

and administration of the settlement continues. That process 

has already taken years, with no end clearly in sight. 

Importantly, there is no suggestion here that the fee and 

expense awards made for pre-settlement work would be 

revisited in resolving post-settlement fees. Furthermore, the 

fact that we have already upheld the district court’s approval 

of the Settlement Agreement, Cobell v. Salazar, 679 F.3d 909 

(D.C. Cir. 2012), means that the prospect of the entire 

judgment being reopened is (at best) speculative, and indeed 

is something for which no party is asking. That is sufficient 

to render the pre-settlement expense decision final.7

 7

 See, e.g., Interfaith Cmty. Org. v. Honeywell Int’l, Inc., 426 F.3d 

694, 702–703 (3d Cir. 2005) (“[I]n a complex and ongoing action 

such as this, § 1291 should not act as a bar to our exercise of 

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III

Analysis of Expense Award Decision

The Claims Resolution Act gave the district court 

discretion to determine whether to award the Class 

Representatives incentive payments and the amount of any 

such payments “in accordance with controlling law[.]” Pub. 

L. No. 111-291, § 101(g)(1)(A); see also Cobell, 679 F.3d at 

922 (“[T]he class settlement agreement provided no guarantee 

that the class representatives would receive incentive 

payments; it left that decision and the amount of any such 

payments to the discretion of the district court.”). We 

accordingly review the district court’s denial of compensation 

for expenses for an abuse of discretion. We similarly review 

the district court’s denial of reconsideration, whether brought 

under Rule 54(b) or Rule 59(e) of the Federal Rules of Civil 

Procedure, for abuse of discretion. See Capitol Sprinkler 

Inspection, Inc. v. Guest Services, Inc., 630 F.3d 217, 225 

(D.C. Cir. 2011) (Rule 54(b)); Flynn v. Dick Corp., 481 F.3d 

824, 829 (D.C. Cir. 2007) (Rule 59(e)).

 

jurisdiction over a fee award which resolves all fee claims for the 

period leading up to a verdict.”); Gates v. Rowland, 39 F.3d 1439, 

1450 (9th Cir. 1994) (entry of judgment as part of an ongoing and 

periodic fee award process arising from monitoring a consent 

decree was final because the decision conclusively resolved the 

amount of fees that would be awarded for a discrete period of time 

and activity under the consent decree); In re Nineteen Appeals 

Arising Out of San Juan Dupont Plaza Hotel Fire Litig., 982 F.2d 

603, 610 (1st Cir. 1992) (order regarding fees for one phase of 

litigation was final because the award for that phase was “[i]n effect 

* * * inviolate” in the next fee phase); cf. Pigford v. Veneman, 369 

F.3d 545, 547 (D.C. Cir. 2004) (no appellate review where the 

order challenged “does not finally dispose of a fee petition even for 

a finite part of the post-judgment period”).

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The plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration argued both 

that (i) the Class Representatives were personally liable for 

much of the expenses they sought to recover, and (ii) even if 

the expenses were not attributable to the Class 

Representatives, the Settlement Agreement permits the 

payment of costs and expenses of third parties wholly 

independent of the costs and expenses of Class Counsel. J.A. 

1838, 1841. On appeal, the only argument that plaintiffs 

press concerning individual responsibility for expenses is lead 

plaintiff Elouise Cobell’s asserted personal liability for 

$390,000 in expenses. Otherwise, the plaintiffs devote most 

of their appellate effort to challenging the district court’s 

ruling that it lacked authority to make any award for expenses 

incurred by third parties. 

Cobell’s Personally Incurred Expenses

Elouise Cobell died on October 16, 2011, more than two 

years before the district court denied her motion to reconsider 

her individual claim for compensation of litigation expenses 

and before a notice of appeal was filed on her behalf. While 

the death of a party generally moots any claim for injunctive 

relief, death usually does not moot a claim for monetary 

compensation. See, e.g., Consolidated Rail Corp. v. Darrone, 

465 U.S. 624, 630 (1984); Goodwin v. C.N.J., Inc., 436 F.3d 

44, 48–49 (1st Cir. 2006); Harrow v. Prudential Ins. Co. of 

America, 279 F.3d 244, 248–249 (3d Cir. 2002); Hall v. 

UNUM Life Ins. Co. of Am., 300 F.3d 1197, 1207 n.5 (10th 

Cir. 2002). But that is because the individual’s estate or 

someone else legally eligible to recover the monetary claim 

on the deceased’s behalf is substituted by counsel, as federal 

rules specifically provide. See Fed. R. App. P. 43(a); Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 25(a)(1); Goodwin, 436 F.3d at 47, 49 (claim for 

damages “survive[d] [plaintiff’s] death and Article III’s ‘case 

or controversy’ element” where “personal representative * * * 

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successfully moved for substitution as party plaintiff”); 

Harrow, 279 F.3d at 247, 250 (same).

Inexplicably, counsel in this case never made any such 

substitution either in the district court or at any time this 

appeal was pending, until this court entered an order to show 

cause why Cobell’s claim should not be dismissed as moot. 

Counsel simply continued to press Cobell’s personal and 

individualized claim for compensation for expenses she paid 

to third parties as though her asserted injury could still be 

redressed.

That incomprehensible delay in substitution could have 

been fatal. Article III of the Constitution confines our 

jurisdiction to deciding actual cases or controversies. See 

Genesis Healthcare Corp. v. Symczk, 133 S. Ct. 1523, 1528 

(2013). And one foundational and indispensable element of a 

case or controversy is that a plaintiff have a “personal stake in 

the outcome” at all stages of the litigation. Id. Until our 

order to show cause, that prerequisite was conspicuously 

lacking here for Cobell’s individual claim for compensation.

Cobell’s counsel responds only that the federal rules 

setting up the procedure for substitutions in the event of a 

party’s death do not impose a strict time limit for filing such a 

motion. Pls.’ Show-Cause Resp. 4–6; see generally Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 25(a)(1); Fed. R. App. P. 43(a). At most, that suggests 

that counsel’s inexplicable delay did not violate the letter of 

the Rules, although an expectation of ordinary diligence 

presumably underlies each rule, and that certainly was 

transgressed here.

The Rules, however, are no answer to the problem of 

Article III mootness, which can be triggered by inordinate 

delay in filing a motion for substitution. See Ortiz v. Dodge, 

126 F.3d 545, 550–551 (3d Cir. 1997) (“Regardless of 

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20

whether [an] attorney has failed to comply with Rule 43(a), 

we think it is quite clear that, at some point, the failure to 

substitute a proper party for a deceased appellant moots the 

case.”); Pisacane v. Desjardins, 115 F. App’x 446, 449 (1st 

Cir. 2004) (dismissing appeal as moot where plaintiff’s 

counsel failed to timely substitute under Rule 43); Coster v. 

Watts, 390 F. App’x 168, 171 (3d Cir. 2010) (same, where 

counsel had “numerous opportunities to find a substitute” but 

failed to do so). Counsel in this case and in other cases going 

forward would thus be well-advised to act diligently and 

promptly in providing courts formal notice of the death of a 

party—especially when the party is a class representative—

and making the legally required substitution.8

Turning to the merits of Cobell’s claim, the plaintiffs’ 

argument that the district court failed to properly consider or 

compensate any expenses personally incurred by Cobell is a 

complete non-starter. The district court awarded Cobell a $2 

million incentive payment—80% of the total amount of 

incentive payments granted. When the question of expenses 

was raised, the district court was explicit: The $2 million 

“will incorporate her expenses as well,” and so those 

personally incurred costs “will come out of her sizable 

incentive award that I have already approved.” J.A. 1760, 

1761. “She will not get additional monies for her expenses.” 

J.A. 1760. The court repeated that determination in the 

decision denying reconsideration. J.A. 1841.

Compensating Cobell in that manner was entirely 

appropriate. The Settlement Agreement specifically provides 

 8 In a separate order, we grant the tardy motion for substitution 

solely for purposes of litigating Cobell’s individual claim for 

monetary compensation. We leave for the district court to consider 

on remand whether any substitution for Cobell in her capacity as a 

class representative is appropriate or necessary.

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that the request for “incentive awards” shall “includ[e] 

expenses and costs, of the Class Representatives.” Settlement 

Agreement ¶ K.2. The district court’s approach also 

comported with practice, as incentive awards have often been 

used to compensate a class representative for incurring 

expenses or taking on financial risk. See RMED Int’l, Inc. v. 

Sloan’s Supermarkets, Inc., No. 94 CIV. 5587 (PKL), 2003 

WL 21136726, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. May 15, 2003) (incentive 

award took into account that class representative had 

advanced most of the expenses incurred in the litigation).

9

Authority to Compensate for Third Party Expenses

The district court declined to address the plaintiffs’ 

argument that the Settlement and Fee Agreements authorized 

an award of expenses even if they were incurred by third 

parties. Treating the motion for reconsideration as filed under 

Rule 59(e), the court reasoned that the argument was a new 

one that “could have been raised before the Court ruled on the 

incentive-award petition and, therefore, is not a proper subject 

of the motion for reconsideration” under Rule 59(e). 29 F. 

Supp. 3d at 25; id. at 22–23 (“The Court * * * will treat the 

plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration as a timely motion to 

alter or amend the judgment pursuant to Rule 59(e),” and a 

“Rule 59(e) motion * * * may not be used to raise arguments 

or present evidence that could have been raised before the 

entry of judgment.”) (citing GSS Grp. Ltd. v. National Port 

Auth., 680 F.3d 805, 812 (D.C. Cir. 2012)).

 9

 See also Vasquez v. Coast Valley Roofing, Inc., 266 F.R.D. 482, 

491 (E.D. Cal. 2010) (potential liability for defendants’ costs); 

Razilov v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., No. 01-CV-1466-BR, 2006 

WL 3312024, at *3 (D. Or. Nov. 13, 2006) (potential liability for 

counsel’s expenses); Allapattah Servs., Inc. v. Exxon Corp., 454 F. 

Supp. 2d 1185, 1221 (S.D. Fla. 2006) (covering potential liability 

for “financially ruinous” costs).

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Denying consideration of the plaintiffs’ argument as 

procedurally barred under Rule 59(e) was error. A motion 

under Rule 59(e) is a motion “to alter or amend a judgment,” 

Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e), yet at the time the motion for 

reconsideration was filed, no judgment had yet been entered, 

nor had the district court’s oral ruling even been reduced to 

writing. The decision was interlocutory and thus the 

reconsideration motion should have been treated as filed 

under Rule 54(b).

That mistaken characterization of the reconsideration 

motion, moreover, was of legal consequence. Rule 59(e), 

understandably, sets a high threshold for parties to raise a new 

argument for the first time after judgment has already been 

entered. See, e.g., Ciralsky v. CIA, 355 F.3d 661, 671 (D.C. 

Cir. 2004) (Rule 59(e) motions need not be granted unless

“there is an intervening change of controlling law, the 

availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a clear 

error or prevent manifest injustice.”) (internal quotation marks 

omitted); New York v. United States, 880 F. Supp. 37, 39 

(D.D.C. 1995) (“Only if the moving party presents new facts 

or a clear error of law which ‘compel’ a change in the court’s 

ruling will the motion to reconsider be granted.”).

In contrast, Rule 54(b)’s approach to the interlocutory 

presentation of new arguments as the case evolves can be

more flexible, reflecting the “inherent power of the rendering 

district court to afford such relief from interlocutory 

judgments as justice requires.” Greene v. Union Mutual Life 

Ins. Co. of America, 764 F.2d 19, 22 (1st Cir. 1985) (Breyer, 

J.) (ellipsis omitted) (quoting Dow Chem., USA v. Consumer 

Prod. Safety Comm’n, 464 F. Supp. 904, 906 (W.D. La. 

1979)); see Capitol Sprinkler Inspection, Inc. v. Guest Servs., 

Inc., 630 F.3d 217, 227 (D.C. Cir. 2011) (approving of

Greene’s “as justice requires” standard); Cobell v. Norton, 

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224 F.R.D. 266, 272 (D.D.C. 2004) (“[T]he standard for 

reconsideration of interlocutory orders under Rule 54(b) is 

distinct from the standard applicable to [Rule 59(e)] motions 

for reconsideration[.] * * * [I]t is clear that courts have more 

flexibility in applying Rule 54(b) than in determining whether 

reconsideration is appropriate under Rule 59(e)[.]”) (internal 

quotation marks omitted).

Accordingly, the district court’s application of Rule 

59(e)’s strict prohibition on raising new arguments postjudgment as a flat bar to considering plaintiffs’ argument was 

unwarranted. See Saint Annes Dev. Co. v. Trabich, 443 F. 

App’x 829, 832 (4th Cir. 2011) (unpublished) (error to treat a 

motion for reconsideration under Rule 54(b) as a Rule 59(e) 

motion); see also Fayetteville Investors v. Commercial 

Builders, Inc., 936 F.2d 1462, 1469–1473 (4th Cir. 1991) 

(error to treat motion for reconsideration of an order 

dismissing a complaint as to just one of two defendants as 

subject to the strict standards of Rule 60(b)); Greene, 764 

F.2d at 22; Raytheon Constructors Inc. v. Asarco Inc., 368 

F.3d 1214, 1216–1217 (10th Cir. 2003) (improper to apply 

Rule 60(b) standards to motion for reconsideration filed after 

the first stage in a bifurcated trial).

We need not decide whether that misstep by itself would 

warrant reversal. That is because the district court was also 

mistaken in concluding that the plaintiffs had not previously 

argued that the Settlement Agreement permits an award of 

third-party costs. The plaintiffs raised the point, albeit 

without much elaboration at first, in both their initial petition 

for an expense award and in the reply brief in support of their 

petition. See J.A. 788, 1664.

That oversight may be understandable, given the 

voluminous claims and arguments made over the course of 

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approving and implementing this massive and complex 

Settlement Agreement. Unfortunately, the error leaves us 

without guidance as to how the district court would have 

interpreted the Settlement Agreement and, more importantly, 

how it would exercise its broad discretion in compensating 

expenses if they were found to be recoverable. We are 

reluctant to interpret in the first instance a provision of the 

Settlement Agreement on which the parties place such starkly 

different readings, especially without knowing if the ruling 

would have any practical consequence. The district court, 

after all, might simply decline to exercise its discretion to 

award costs even if they were deemed available. Cf. 

Hamilton v. Geithner, 666 F.3d 1344, 1359 (D.C. Cir. 2012) 

(“Although we review all questions of law de novo and have 

the discretion to consider questions of law that were not 

passed upon by the District Court, this court’s normal rule is 

to avoid such consideration.”) (quoting Liberty Property Trust 

v. Republic Properties Corp., 577 F.3d 335, 341 (D.C. Cir.

2009)); Bowie v. Maddox, 642 F.3d 1122, 1131 (D.C. Cir. 

2011) (remanding where legal issue not passed on below 

raised “several questions of first impression in this circuit that 

would benefit from the trial court’s consideration”). Mindful 

as we are of the length of time that has already elapsed in this 

proceeding, we decline to resolve this legal issue without 

providing the district court with an opportunity to consider the 

interpretive and discretionary issues in the first instance.

IV

Conclusion

We hold that the appeal filed by the plaintiffs here is 

timely and that the order appealed from is both final and ripe. 

We affirm the district court’s denial of an additional award of 

expenses to Cobell. Finally, we vacate and remand the 

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district court’s determination that the questions of whether 

third-party expenses can and should be reimbursed were

procedurally barred. We remand for the district court to 

consider that argument and, if warranted, to exercise its 

discretion concerning such awards.

So ordered.

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