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Nature of Suit Code: 504
Nature of Suit: 
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

THE HOPI TRIBE, 

a federally recognized Indian Tribe,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

UNITED STATES,

Defendant-Appellee

______________________ 

2014-5018

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal 

Claims in No. 1:12-CV-00045, Judge Lawrence J. Block.

______________________ 

Decided: April 2, 2015

______________________ 

MICHAEL DAVID GOODSTEIN, Hunsucker Goodstein PC, 

Washington, DC, argued for plaintiff-appellant. 

ELLEN J. DURKEE, Environment and Natural Resources Division, United States Department of Justice, 

Washington, DC, argued for defendant-appellee. Also 

represented by ROBERT G. DREHER. 

______________________ 

Before LOURIE, CHEN, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.

HUGHES, Circuit Judge. 

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2 HOPI TRIBE v. US

The Hopi Tribe filed suit against the United States in 

the Court of Federal Claims seeking damages to cover the 

cost of providing safe drinking water on the Hopi Reservation. In order to invoke the trial court’s jurisdiction, the 

Hopi Tribe must identify a statute or regulation imposing 

a specific obligation on the United States to provide 

adequate drinking water that would give rise to a claim 

for money damages. Because the Court of Federal Claims 

properly concluded that the Hopi Tribe failed to identify 

any source for a money-mandating obligation, we affirm. 

I

The Hopi Tribe is a federally recognized Indian tribe 

that occupies a reservation of land in northeastern Arizona. President Chester Arthur first established the reservation by executive order in 1882 (the Executive Order). 

The Executive Order declared the land would be “withdrawn from settlement and sale, and set apart for the use 

and occupancy of the [Hopi] and other such Indians as the 

Secretary of the Interior may see fit to settle thereon.” 

See I Charles J. Kappler, Indian Affairs: Laws and Treaties 805 (1904). Congress ratified the Executive Order in 

the Act of July 22, 1958, Pub. L. No. 85–547, 72 Stat. 403 

(1958). The Act provides that:

[L]ands described in the Executive order dated 

December 16, 1882, are hereby declared to be held 

by the United States in trust for the Hopi Indians 

and such other Indians, if any, as heretofore have 

been settled thereon by the Secretary of the Interior pursuant to such Executive order. 

Id. 

The present dispute relates to the quality of drinking 

water on the Hopi Reservation. The public water systems

on the reservation rely on groundwater drawn from

subsurface layers of water-bearing rock. The Hopi Tribe 

alleges that the public water systems serving five comCase: 14-5018 Document: 42-2 Page: 2 Filed: 04/02/2015
HOPI TRIBE v. US 3

munities on the eastern portion of the reservation contain

unsafe levels of arsenic that exceed the federally allowed 

maximum. See 40 C.F.R. § 141.62 (setting a maximum

contaminant level of 10 micrograms per liter). Arsenic is 

a toxic chemical that occurs naturally in rock and soils. 

Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, Envt’l Prot. 

Agency, Complying With the Revised Drinking Water 

Standard for Arsenic: Small Entity Compliance Guide 3 

(August 2002), available at

http://water.epa.gov/lawsregs/rulesregs/sdwa/arsenic/Com

pliance.cfm. According to the Hopi Tribe, arsenic can 

cause bladder, lung, and skin cancer; as well as harm to 

the nervous system, heart, and blood vessels.

The Hopi Tribe alleges the United States funded and 

provided technical assistance for the construction of many

of the wells that supply contaminated groundwater. 

Currently, the Hopi Tribe owns and operates the public 

water systems serving four of the affected communities—

Mishongnovi, Polacca, Sipaulovi, and Shungopavi. The 

Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs 

(BIA), owns and operates the system serving the fifth

community, Keams Canyon. 

The Hopi Tribe filed a complaint against the United 

States in the Court of Federal Claims seeking damages to 

cover the cost of providing alternative sources of drinking 

water in all five communities. The Court of Federal 

Claims dismissed the complaint, finding the Hopi Tribe 

failed to establish jurisdiction under the Indian Tucker 

Act. The Court of Federal Claims also denied the Hopi 

Tribe’s request for jurisdictional discovery. The Hopi 

Tribe appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1295(a)(3). 

II

We review de novo a grant or denial of a motion to 

dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. Bell/Heery v. United 

States, 739 F.3d 1324, 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2014). “A plaintiff 

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4 HOPI TRIBE v. US

bears the burden of establishing subject-matter jurisdiction by a preponderance of the evidence.” M. Maropakis 

Carpentry, Inc. v. United States, 609 F.3d 1323, 1327 

(Fed. Cir. 2010).

The Court of Federal Claims’ jurisdiction over suits 

against the United States is limited by the doctrine of 

sovereign immunity. The United States may not be sued 

without its consent. United States v. Navajo Nation, 556 

U.S. 287, 289 (2009) (Navajo II). The United States has 

waived sovereign immunity in various statutes, including 

the Indian Tucker Act. United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 

206, 212 (1983) (Mitchell II). The Indian Tucker Act

provides that the Court of Federal Claims shall have 

jurisdiction over claims against the United States by 

Indian tribes: 

[W]henever such claim is one arising under the 

Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States, 

or Executive orders of the President, or is one 

which otherwise would be cognizable in the Court 

of Federal Claims if the claimant were not an Indian tribe, band, or group. 

28 U.S.C. § 1505. The final clause—“one which otherwise 

would be cognizable”—refers to the waiver of sovereign 

immunity in the Tucker Act, which gives the Court of 

Federal Claims jurisdiction over any claim “founded 

either upon the Constitution, or any Act of Congress or 

any regulation of an executive department, or upon any 

express or implied contract with the United States, or for 

liquidated or unliquidated damages in cases not sounding 

in tort.” 28 U.S.C. § 1491(a)(1). 

Although the Indian Tucker Act waives sovereign 

immunity by granting jurisdiction over certain claims, it 

does not itself create any substantive rights. Navajo II, 

556 U.S. at 290. The Indian tribe must assert a claim 

arising out of other sources of law specified in the Act,

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such as a statute or contract. Id. And not any claim 

arising out of these sources of law will do. “The claim 

must be one for money damages against the United States 

. . . and the claimant must demonstrate that the source of 

substantive law he relies upon can fairly be interpreted as 

mandating compensation by the Federal Government for 

damages sustained.” Mitchell II, 463 U.S. at 216–17

(citations and internal quotation marks omitted). 

Accordingly, the Supreme Court has established a 

two-part test for determining jurisdiction under the 

Indian Tucker Act. First, the claimant “must identify a 

substantive source of law that establishes specific fiduciary or other duties, and allege that the Government has 

failed to faithfully perform those duties.” Navajo II, 556 

U.S. at 290. Second, “[i]f that threshold is passed, the 

court must then determine whether the substantive 

source of law can be fairly interpreted as mandating 

compensation for damages sustained as a result of a 

breach of the duties [the governing law] impose[s].” Id. at 

290–91 (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks 

omitted). 

At the first step, a statute or regulation that recites a 

general trust relationship between the United States and 

the Indian People is not enough to establish any particular trust duty. United States v. Mitchell, 445 U.S. 535, 

542–44 (1980) (Mitchell I) (finding a statutory provision

declaring land to be held “in trust for the sole use and 

benefit of the [Indian owner]” did not by virtue of using 

trust language impose any specific duty to manage timber 

resources on the land). “[T]he organization and management of the trust is a sovereign function subject to the 

plenary authority of Congress.” United States v. Jicarilla 

Apache Nation, 131 S. Ct. 2313, 2323 (2011). Accordingly, the United States is only subject to those fiduciary 

duties that it specifically accepts by statute or regulation. 

Id. at 2325; United States v. Navajo Nation, 537 U.S. 488, 

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506 (2003) (Navajo I) (“[T]he analysis must train on 

specific rights-creating or duty-imposing statutory or 

regulatory prescriptions.”). 

To establish that the United States has accepted a 

particular fiduciary duty, an Indian tribe must identify 

statutes or regulations that both impose a specific obligation on the United States and “bear[] the hallmarks of a 

conventional fiduciary relationship.” Navajo II, 556 U.S. 

at 301 (internal quotation marks omitted). In Mitchell II, 

the Supreme Court addressed statutes and regulations

granting the Secretary of the Interior the exclusive authority to sell or approve the sale of timber on allotted 

Indian lands. 463 U.S. at 220. The statutes and regulations detailed “comprehensive responsibilities of the 

Federal Government in managing the harvesting of 

Indian timber,” id. at 222 (internal quotation marks 

omitted), which addressed “virtually every aspect of forest 

management,” id. at 220. Further, the statute required 

the Secretary to consider “the needs and best interests of 

the Indian owner and his heirs” and to return proceeds 

from the sales to the Indian owners or “dispose[] of [them] 

for their benefit.” Id. at 224; see 25 U.S.C. § 406(a). 

Based on this trust-evoking language and the statutory 

and regulatory prescriptions giving the United States 

“full responsibility” over Indian resources, the Supreme 

Court found that Congress had accepted a fiduciary duty 

to manage timber resources according to those specific

prescriptions. Mitchell II, 463 U.S. at 224–25.

Similarly, in United States v. White Mountain Apache 

Tribe, 537 U.S. 465, 475 (2003), the Supreme Court

inferred that Congress accepted a fiduciary duty to preserve improvements to Indian land that it actually used. 

A statute simultaneously declared the land to be “held by 

the United States in trust” and authorized the United 

States to use the land exclusively. Id. This combination 

evoked the “commonsense assumption,” confirmed by 

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principles of trust law, that “a fiduciary actually administering trust property may not allow it to fall into ruin on 

his watch.” Id. Thus, by using trust language in conjunction with an authorization of plenary control of the 

land, Congress clearly accepted a fiduciary duty to exercise that authority with the care charged to a trustee at 

common law. 

Although the Supreme Court in White Mountain 

Apache “looked to common-law principles to inform [its] 

interpretation of [the] statute . . . [,]” Jicarilla, 131 S. Ct. 

at 2325, it does not stand for the proposition that in every 

case “express trust plus actual government control equals 

enforceable trust duties” according to common-law principles. El Paso Nat. Gas Co. v. United States, 750 F.3d 

863, 896 (D.C. Cir. 2014). The Supreme Court used 

common-law trust principles in a more limited fashion. It

referred to common-law trust principles because the

statutory language evoked them, by combining trust 

language and authorization to use the land in the same 

provision. The Supreme Court thus inferred that Congress intended to accept the common-law duty of a trustee 

to preserve the land that it actually administers. See 

White Mountain Apache, 537 U.S. at 475. As the Supreme Court’s subsequent decisions make clear, commonlaw trust duties standing alone, including those premised 

on control, are not enough to establish a particular fiduciary duty of the United States. See Navajo II, 556 U.S. at 

302 (“Because the Tribe cannot identify a specific, applicable, trust-creating statute or regulation that the Government violated . . . [,] neither the Government’s ‘control’ 

over [trust resources] nor common-law trust principles 

matter.”); Jicarilla, 131 S. Ct. at 2325 (“The government 

assumes Indian trust responsibilities only to the extent it 

expressly accepts those responsibilities by statute.”). 

At the second step of the jurisdictional analysis, however, common-law trust principles come into play. If the 

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Indian tribe identifies a specific duty, and that duty 

“bears the hallmarks of a ‘conventional fiduciary relationship’ . . . then trust principles (including any such principles premised on ‘control’) could play a role in ‘inferring 

that the trust obligation [is] enforceable by damages.’” 

Navajo II, 556 U.S. at 301 (quoting White Mountain 

Apache, 537 U.S. at 473, 477) (alteration in original). 

Indeed, the Supreme Court has stated that when a statute establishes specific fiduciary obligations, “it naturally 

follows that the Government should be liable in damages 

for the breach of its fiduciary duties. It is well established 

that a trustee is accountable in damages for breaches of 

trust.” Mitchell II, 463 U.S. at 226 (citing Restatement 

(Second) of the Law of Trusts §§ 205–12 (1959)). 

III

The Hopi Tribe alleges the United States has a fiduciary duty to ensure adequate water quality on the Hopi 

Reservation. The Hopi Tribe points to several sources of 

law to establish this duty: (1) the Executive Order of 1882

and the Act of 1958, as interpreted under the Winters

doctrine; and (2) other scattered provisions authorizing 

various agencies to promote safe drinking water on Indian 

reservations. Because we find that these provisions do 

not establish a fiduciary duty to ensure adequate drinking 

water, we affirm the Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal 

for lack of jurisdiction. 

Neither the Act of 1958 nor the Executive Order of 

1882 refers to drinking water on the reservation, much 

less instructs the United States to manage drinking water 

quality. Instead, the trust language in the Act of 1958, 

which incorporates the Executive Order of 1882, is similar

to the limited trust language at issue in Mitchell I, 445 

U.S. at 541–42. Compare Pub. L. 85-547, sec. 1 (setting 

aside land “to be held by the United States in trust for the 

Hopi Indians”), with 25 U.S.C. § 348 (declaring that “the 

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United States does and will hold the land thus allotted . . . 

in trust for the sole use and benefit of the Indian [allottee]”). The Supreme Court found in Mitchell I that such 

“bare” trust language is not sufficient to establish a 

fiduciary duty to manage resources on the land. Mitchell 

I, 445 U.S. at 541–42. The same is true of the bare trust 

language here: it does not establish any particular fiduciary duty to manage water resources on the land. 

The Hopi Tribe asks us to read the Act of 1958 in light 

of the Winters doctrine to find fiduciary duties regarding 

water quality on the reservation. Under the Winters 

doctrine, also known as the reserved-water-rights doctrine, when the United States reserves land for an Indian 

tribe, it also by implication “reserves [the] amount of 

water necessary to fulfill the purpose of the reservation.” 

Cappaert v. United States, 426 U.S. 128, 141 (1976). This 

reserved water right gives the United States the power to

exclude others from subsequently diverting waters that 

feed the reservation. See Winters v. United States, 207 

U.S. 564, 577–78 (1908) (upholding injunction granted to 

United States in suit to prevent private parties from 

building dams that diverted waters of the Milk River from 

an Indian reservation). In some circumstances, it may 

also give the United States the power to enjoin others 

from practices that reduce the quality of water feeding the 

reservation. See United States v. Gila Valley Irrigation 

Dist., 920 F. Supp. 1444, 1454–55 (D. Ariz. 1996) (enjoining upstream junior appropriators from practices that 

reduce quality of water feeding an Indian reservation, 

pursuant to the Indian tribe’s water right under a prior 

consent decree). It does not, however, give the United 

States responsibility for the quality of water within the 

reservation, independent of any third-party diversion or 

contamination. 

Thus, even if Congress intended the term “land” in 

the Act of 1958 to include reserved water rights under the 

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Winters doctrine, the Act still does not impose a fiduciary 

duty to manage water quality on the Hopi Reservation, 

absent third-party interference. At most, by holding 

reserved water rights in trust, Congress accepted a fiduciary duty to exercise those rights and exclude others 

from diverting or contaminating water that feeds the 

reservation. We cannot infer from this duty that Congress further intended the United States to be responsible 

for providing water infrastructure and treatment needed 

to eliminate naturally occurring contaminants such as 

arsenic.

Finally, the Hopi Tribe points to several other statutory provisions that involve the United States in the 

provision of drinking water on the Hopi Reservation. The 

Indian Health Improvement Act, 25 U.S.C. § 1632(a)(5), 

states that “it is the policy of the United States, that all 

Indian communities and Indian homes . . . be provided 

with safe and adequate water supply systems and sanitary sewage waste disposal systems as soon as possible.” 

Section 1632 authorizes the Secretary of the Interior to 

provide technical and management assistance in the 

building and operation of sanitation facilitates. 25 U.S.C. 

§ 1632(b). Similarly, the Indian Sanitation Facilities Act 

authorizes the Indian Health Service (IHS) “to construct, 

improve, extend, or otherwise provide and maintain . . . 

domestic and community water supplies and facilities . . . 

for Indian homes, communities and lands.” 42 U.S.C. 

§ 2004a(a)(1). Another statute directs the IHS to “provide 

health promotion . . . services to Indians,” 25 U.S.C. 

§ 1621b(a), which is defined to include “making available 

safe water and sanitary facilities.” 25 U.S.C. 

§ 1603(11)(D). Finally, several statutes appropriate 

funding for the extension, operation, and maintenance of 

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water supplies on Indian lands. See 25 U.S.C. §§ 13, 

631(9).1

The Hopi Tribe “does not rely on these statutes as the 

source of substantive law listing specific duties that the 

government failed to perform.” Appellant’s Reply Br. at 

28. Rather, the Hopi Tribe argues that these statutes 

demonstrate that the United States exercises comprehensive control over water resources on the Hopi Reservation, 

and that the United States’ actions are taken pursuant to 

congressional authorization. The Hopi Tribe argues that

under Mitchell II and White Mountain Apache, therefore, 

the statutes show Congress accepted the common-law

trust duty “to maintain, protect, repair and preserve the 

trust property” that the United States actually manages 

and controls. White Mountain Apache, 537 U.S. at 469. 

The Supreme Court has made clear that “[t]he Federal Government’s liability cannot be premised on control 

alone.” Navajo II, 556 U.S. at 301. Regardless of the 

United States’ actual involvement in the provision of 

drinking water on the Hopi Reservation, we cannot infer 

from that control alone that the United States has accepted a fiduciary duty to ensure adequate water quality on 

the reservation.2 Any common-law duties applicable to a 

1 The Hopi Tribe also cites a statute detailing the 

United States’ trust responsibilities in managing tribal 

funds and investments, which are not relevant to the 

management of drinking water quality on the reservation. 

See 25 U.S.C. § 162a(d)(8).

2 For this reason, we also find the Court of Federal 

Claims properly denied the Hopi Tribe’s request for 

jurisdictional discovery relating to the United States’ 

control over water resources on the reservation. Further 

evidence of actual control would not change the jurisdictional analysis. 

 

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private trustee when the trustee actually controls trust

property are not relevant, unless they are clearly accepted 

by statute or regulation. 

Unlike the statutory provision at issue in White 

Mountain Apache, 537 U.S. at 475, the statutory provisions asserted here cannot be interpreted to accept a 

common-law trust duty to preserve trust property that the 

trustee actually administers. The Supreme Court identified a common-law trust duty in White Mountain Apache

because the statute—by simultaneously using trust 

language and authorizing exclusive use of the land—

evoked common-law trust principles, leading to the inference that Congress intended to accept that particular 

trust duty. Id. Here, there is no such indication. Congress created a bare trust in the Act of 1958 and, separately, authorized certain actions to assist the Hopi Tribe 

in providing safe drinking water. None of these later 

provisions use trust language that might evoke commonlaw principles. Nor do they collectively authorize the kind 

of plenary control the Supreme Court found significant in 

White Mountain Apache, 537 U.S. at 476, and Mitchell II, 

463 U.S. at 224. They only require the United States to 

assist in the provision of safe drinking water, and do not 

restrict the Hopi Tribe from managing the resource itself. 

Accordingly, we cannot infer from the trust language in 

the Act of 1958, combined with separate and scattered 

obligations to help provide safe drinking water, that 

Congress has “expressly accepted” a common-law fiduciary duty to manage water resources. Jicarilla, 131 S. Ct. 

at 2325. 

Nor does Mitchell II suggest the United States has accepted a common-law fiduciary duty to manage water 

resources. The statutes asserted here do not give the kind 

of “full responsibility” and “elaborate control” over water 

resources that the Supreme Court found to support a 

fiduciary relationship regarding timber resources in 

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Mitchell II, 463 U.S. at 224–25. Moreover, the Supreme 

Court in Mitchell II did not find Congress accepted unspecified common-law fiduciary obligations on the basis of 

control alone, as the Hopi Tribe argues here. Rather, the 

Supreme Court found that, in light of that elaborate

control and the trust language in the statutes, Congress 

intended the specific prescriptions listed in those statutes 

and regulations to constitute fiduciary obligations, enforceable in a suit for damages. Id. at 226 (“[T]he statutes 

and regulations at issue in this case clearly establish 

fiduciary obligations of the Government in the management and operation of Indian lands and resources . . . .”). 

Thus, Mitchell II does not allow us to depart from the 

Supreme Court’s repeated admonition that the United 

States is not subject to common-law trust duties, including any duties premised on control, unless it “expressly 

accepts those responsibilities by statute.” Jicarilla, 131 

S. Ct. at 2325.

In sum, the sources of law relied on by the Hopi Tribe 

do not establish a specific fiduciary obligation on the 

United States to ensure adequate water quality on the 

Hopi Reservation. Because the Hopi Tribe has failed to 

“identify a specific, applicable, trust-creating statute or 

regulation that the [United States] violated,” Navajo II, 

556 U.S. at 302, we do not need to reach the second step 

of the jurisdictional inquiry—whether the specific obligation is money mandating. We conclude the Court of 

Federal Claims does not have jurisdiction over the Hopi 

Tribe’s claim under the Indian Tucker Act. 

IV

We understand that water quality on parts of the Hopi Reservation is unacceptable, due in part to insufficient 

funds for new water infrastructure. But the Supreme 

Court’s decisions are controlling in this case. Because the 

Hopi Tribe has not identified a money-mandating obligaCase: 14-5018 Document: 42-2 Page: 13 Filed: 04/02/2015
14 HOPI TRIBE v. US

tion that the United States allegedly violated, we must 

affirm the Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal of this suit 

for lack of jurisdiction under the Indian Tucker Act. 

AFFIRMED

No costs.

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