Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-12-17151/USCOURTS-ca9-12-17151-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 

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FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

DAVID LAUGHING HORSE ROBINSON,

an individual and Chairman,

Kawaiisu Tribe of Tejon;

KAWAIISU TRIBE OF TEJON,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

SALLY JEWELL, Secretary, U.S.

Department of the Interior; 

TEJON MOUNTAIN VILLAGE, LLC;

COUNTY OF KERN; TEJON RANCH

CORPORATION; TEJON RANCHCORP,

Defendants-Appellees.

No. 12-17151

D.C. No.

1:09-cv-01977-

BAM

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of California

Barbara McAuliffe, Magistrate Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted

November 20, 2014—San Francisco, California

Filed June 22, 2015

Before: Sidney R. Thomas, Chief Judge, and Stephen

Reinhardt and Morgan Christen, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Chief Judge Thomas

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2 ROBINSON V. JEWELL

SUMMARY*

Tribal Land Rights 

The panel affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the

claims of the Kawaiisu, a non-federally recognized Native

American group, and its elected chairperson, David Laughing

Horse Robinson, asserting title to the Tejon Ranch, one of the

largest continuous expanses of private land in California.

The panel held that the district court properly determined

that the Tribe had no ownership interest in the Tejon Ranch

and that no reservation was established. Specifically, the

panel held that the district court correctly concluded that the

Tribe’s failure to present a claim to the Board of

Commissioners created by the California Land Claims Act of

1851 extinguished its title; that the Treaty with the Utah did

not convey land rights to the signatory tribes or recognize

aboriginal title; and that Treaty D was never ratified and

conveyed no rights. The panel rejected the Tribe’s

complaints of alleged forgery and deception in obtaining

patents for the four Mexican land grants comprising Tejon

Ranch because all of the alleged acts occurred prior to the

submission of the claims to the Board of Commissioners, and

the Tribe could not challenge the validity of land patents after

more than a century of time had passed.

The panel held that the claims against Kern County were

subsumed into the Tejon Ranch ownership determination.

The panel further held that the Tribe’s claims originally

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has

been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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ROBINSON V. JEWELL 3

asserted against the Secretary of the United States

Department of the Interior, and Robinson’s individual claims,

were waived for failure to assert them on appeal. The panel

declined to consider the Tribe’s new arguments on appeal. 

COUNSEL

Jeffrey M. Schwartz (argued), Schwartz Law, P.C., San

Clemente, California, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Tamara N. Rountree (argued), Barbara M. R. Marvin, and

William Lazarus, Attorneys, United States Department of

Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division,

Appellate Section, Washington, D. C., Defendant-Appellee

Secretary of Interior.

Eric D. Miller (argued), Perkins Coie LLP, Seattle,

Washington; Jennifer A. MacLean, Benjamin S. Sharp, and

Elisabeth C. Frost, Perkins Coie LLP, Washington D.C., for

Defendants-Appellees Tejon Mountain Village, LLC, Tejon

Ranch Corporation, and Tejon Ranchcorp.

Charles F. Collins (argued) and Theresa A. Goldner, Kern

County Administrative Center, Bakersfield, California, for

Defendant-Appellee Kern County.

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4 ROBINSON V. JEWELL

OPINION

THOMAS, Chief Judge:

In this appeal, the Kawaiisu, a non-federally recognized

Native American group indigenous to the Tehachapi

Mountains and the Southern Sierra Nevada (“the Tribe” or

“the Kawaiisu”), and its elected chairperson, David Laughing

Horse Robinson, appeal the dismissal of their claims asserting

title to the Tejon Ranch, one of the largest continuous

expanses of private land in California. We review de novo a

district court’s order granting a motion to dismiss for failure

to state a claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure

12(b)(6), Manzarek v. St. Paul Fire & Marine Ins., Co.,

519 F.3d 1025, 1030 (9th Cir. 2008), and we affirm the

judgment of the district court.

I

As with most land disputes of this type, historical

perspective is important in resolving the claims. During first

the Spanish and then the Mexican occupations of what is now

California, those governments encouraged settlement by

issuing large land grants in the territory. At the conclusion of

the Mexican-American War in 1848, the United States

acquired California from Mexico through the Treaty of

Guadalupe Hidalgo. The treaty promised to honor Spanish

and Mexican land grants. Treaty of Peace, Friendship,

Limits, and Settlement between the United States of America

and the Mexican Republic art. VIII–IX, Feb. 2, 1848, 9 Stat.

922 (“Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo”).

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ROBINSON V. JEWELL 5

The discovery of gold in California just eight days

prior to the signing of the treaty, and the subsequent,

unprecedented influx of settlers to the territory, placed a great

deal of pressure on land claims. To resolve disputes over the

validity of private title to land, Congress passed the Act of

March 3, 1851, ch. 41, 9 Stat. 631 (“Act of 1851”),

commonly known as the California Land Claims Act of 1851. 

The Act created a Board of Commissioners (“Commission”)

to evaluate claims and required that anyone claiming title

derived from a Mexican or Spanish grant present a claim to

the Commission within two years. Id. § 8. Any land not

claimed within that period, or for which a claim was rejected,

would be returned to “the public domain of the United

States.” Id. § 13.

No Indian groups, including the predecessors to the

Kawaiisu, registered claims with the Commission during the

two-year period. In addition, the United States Senate

refused to ratify any of the eighteen treaties negotiated with

California tribes between 1851 and 1852, a decision that was

sealed until 1905. William C. Sturtevant, HANDBOOK OF

NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS: CALIFORNIA 702–03 (1978).

Following the cessation of hostilities with Mexico and the

signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States

entered into and ratified a treaty with an array of western

Native American leaders collectively referred to as “the

Utah.” The Treaty with the Utah, signed in 1849 in Santa Fe,

New Mexico, provided for an end to hostilities between the

Utah tribes and the United States and stipulated that the Utahs

accept and submit to the jurisdiction of the United States. 

Further, it stated:

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6 ROBINSON V. JEWELL

[The United States] shall, at its earliest

convenience, designate, settle, and adjust their

territorial boundaries . . . . [a]nd the said

Utahs, further, bind themselves not to depart

from their accustomed homes or localities

unless specially permitted . . . and so soon as

their boundaries are distinctly defined, the

said Utahs are further bound to confine

themselves to said limits, under pueblos, or to

settle in such other manner as will enable

them most successfully to cultivate the soil,

and pursue such other industrial pursuits as

will best promote their happiness and

prosperity: and they now deliberately and

considerately, pledge their existence as a

distinct tribe, to abstain, for all time to come,

from all depredations; to cease the roving and

rambling habits which have hitherto marked

them as a people; to confine themselves

strictly to the limits which may be assigned

them; and to support themselves by their own

industry, aided and directed as it may be by

the wisdom, justice, and humanity of the

American people.

Treaty with the Utah, Dec. 30, 1849, art. VII, 9 Stat. 984. 

The Kawaiisu allege that several of its leaders, including its

head chief at the time, Acaguate Nochi, were among the

signatories to the treaty.

The Kawaiisu identifythemselves as “an Indian Tribe that

has resided in and around Kern County, California since time

immemorial.” Plaintiff Robinson traces his lineage through

multiple previous head chiefs of the Kawaiisu back to

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ROBINSON V. JEWELL 7

Acaguate Nochi. The Kawaiisu are not currently, and have

never been, included on the official list of federally

recognized tribes maintained by the Bureau of Indian Affairs

at the Department of the Interior.

According to the Tribe’s complaint, the Kawaiisu first

appeared in the historical record in the 1776 diary of Father

Francisco Garces. Father Garces’ map of the following year

notes the Tribe’s presence according to a number of its

historic names. While the name Kawaiisu derives

linguistically from a tribe to the north in San Joaquin Valley,

the Tribe identifies as “one of the ancient Great Basin

Shoshone Paiute Tribes whose pre-European territory

extended from Utah to the Pacific Ocean.” The Kawaiisu’s

complaint lists an array of ethnographic accounts

documenting its unique tribal identity, including the Bureau

of American Ethnology’s 1907 Handbook of American

Indians North of Mexico.

In 1851—two years after the signing of the Treaty with

the Utah and just a few months after the California Land

Claims Act of 1851 went into effect—the United States

executed a treaty with “various tribes of Indians in the State

of California” in which the tribes agreed to cede large

portions of land and the federal government promised to set

aside reservations “for the sole use and occupancy” of the

tribes and supply the Indians with goods and services,

including schools. This treaty, known as “Treaty D,” was

submitted to Congress but never ratified by the Senate.1

1

In 1927, the California legislature passed a statute authorizing the

California Attorney General to bring suit on behalf of the tribes who were

party to Treaty D and seventeen other unratified treaties. On May 18,

1928, Congress passed The Indians of California Act, 25 U.S.C. § 651,

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8 ROBINSON V. JEWELL

In the absence of any ratified treaties with the Indians of

California, the establishment of reservations in the state could

only result from an act of Congress or from the President

acting under delegation from Congress. Three acts of

Congress—taking place in 1853, 1855, and 1864—are

relevant here. The Act of 1853 authorized the President to

create five “military reservations” no more than 25,000 acres

in size in the state of California or the territories of Utah and

New Mexico. Act of March 3, 1853, ch. 104, 10 Stat. 226,

238. In 1855, Congress amended the Act of 1853 to provide

funding and authorization for two additional reservations. 

Act of March 3, 1855, 10 Stat. 699.

During the period prior to 1864, the President appears to

have only officially created three reservations in California. 

Mattz v. Arnett, 412 U.S. 481, 489 (1973) (“At the time of the

passage of the 1864 Act there were, apparently, three

reservationsin California: the Klamath River, the Mendocino,

and the Smith River.”). The Tribe alleges that the

Tejon/Sebastian Reservation was created pursuant to the Act

of 1853, pointing to a letter from President Franklin Pierce to

the Secretary of the Interior, Robert McClelland, and a

subsequent letter from the Secretary to the Superintendent of

Indian Affairs for California, Edward F. Beale, from that

same year.

which granted jurisdiction to the Court of Claims to hear these cases. Earl

Warren, representing “all those Indians of the various tribes, bands and

rancherias who were living in the State of California on June 1, 1852, and

their descendants living in the State,” Indians of California by Webb v.

United States, 98 Ct. Cl. 583, 585 (Ct. Cl. 1942), negotiated a

$5,024,842.34 judgment in favor of the Indians. See Round Valley Indian

Tribes v. United States, 97 Fed. Cl. 500, 504 (Fed. Cl. 2011).

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ROBINSON V. JEWELL 9

After quoting the paragraph of the 1853 Act authorizing

creation of five reservations, President Pierce’s letter states,

“In the exercise of discretion vested in me by said act of

Congress, I have examined and hereby approve the plan

therein proposed for the protection of the Indians in

California, and request that you will take the necessary steps

for carrying the same into effect.” Secretary McClelland’s

letter to Superintendent Beale repeats the language from the

Act of 1853 and then states that:

The President of the United States has

examined and approved the plan provided for

in said act, and directs that you be charged

with the duty of carrying it into effect. For

this purpose you will repair to California

without delay, and by the most expeditious

route. The selections of the military

reservations are to be made by you in

conjunction with the military commandant in

California, or such officer as may be detailed

for that purpose, in which case they must be

sanctioned by the commandant. It is likewise

the President’s desire that, in all other matters

connected with the execution of this “plan,”

you will, as far as may be practicable, act in

concert with the commanding officer of that

military department.

However, no Presidential proclamation or executive order

was ever issued regarding the Tejon or Sebastian Reservation.

In 1864, Congress significantly reorganized management

of reservations in California. The Act of 1864 consolidated

California as one Indian superintendency, empowered the

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10 ROBINSON V. JEWELL

President to create no more than four reservations, and

required that lands not retained as reservations under the Act

be offered for public sale. Act of Apr. 8, 1864, ch. 40, 48, 13

Stat. 39. The President eventually established four

reservations by executive order. The Tejon/Sebastian

Reservation was not among them.

The land at issue in the case—the 270,000 acres

comprising Tejon Ranch and the 49,000 of those acres

referred to as the Tejon or Sebastian Reservation—is made up

of portions of four different Mexican land grants: Rancho El

Tejon, Rancho los Alamos y Agua Caliente, Rancho Castac,

and Rancho La Liebre. The various holders of those four

grants submitted claims pursuant to the Act of 1851, all of

which were confirmed by the Commission, which issued

patents for the claims between 1863 and 1875. The rights to

all four of these grants were acquired by Edward F. Beale

between 1855 and 1866. Defendants Tejon Mountain

Village, LLC, Tejon Ranch Corporation, and Tejon

Ranchcorp (collectively, “Tejon Ranch Defendants”)

ultimately acquired title through transactions traceable to the

patents. The Tejon Ranch Defendants propose a 3,450-home

development named Tejon Mountain Village on the Tejon

Ranch.

The Tribe filed this action asserting title under a variety

of theories ultimately asserting four claims against the

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ROBINSON V. JEWELL 11

Secretary of Interior,2two against the Tejon Ranch

Defendants,3 and one against Kern County, California.4

After dismissing two complaints with leave to amend, the

district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice.

II

The Tribe has waived appeal of its claims against the

Secretary by failing to “present a specific, cogent argument

for our consideration.” Greenwood v. FAA, 28 F.3d 971, 977

(9th Cir. 1994); see also Fed. R. App. P. 28(a)(8)(A)

(requiring that an appellant’s brief must contain an argument

section which includes their “contentions and the reasons for

them, with citations to the authorities and parts of the record

on which the appellant relies”).

2 The Tribe’s claims against the Secretary are (1) deprivation of property

without due process in violation of the Fifth Amendment by wrongfully

omitting the Tribe from the list of federally recognized tribes and failing

to correct that omission; (2) breach of fiduciary duty by not intervening on

the Tribe’s behalf to stop the proposed development of Tejon Mountain

Village; (3) denial of equal protection in violation ofthe Fifth Amendment

by extending benefits to other tribal groups while failing to recognize the

Tribe; and (4) non-statutory review of the Secretary’s failure to recognize

the Tribe, based on federal recognition by virtue of the Act of Congress

ratifying the 1849 Treaty with the Utah.

3 The Tribe’s claims against the Tejon parties include unlawful

possession ofTejonRanch, trespass, violation of NAGPRA, and violation

of the Non-Intercourse Act.

4 The Tribe’s sole claim against Kern County is for equitable

enforcement of treaty—essentially forcing the County to revoke its

approval of permits for the development of Tejon Mountain Village.

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12 ROBINSON V. JEWELL

On appeal, the Tribe asserts a new theory of estoppel

against the Secretary and suggests that the United States

violated its trust responsibility by failing to present or

preserve the Tribe’s claims before the Commission. Neither

theory was presented to the district court. We decline to

consider arguments raised for the first time on appeal. Raich

v. Gonzales, 500 F.3d 850, 868 (9th Cir. 2007).

III

A

The Tribe claims ownership to the Tejon Ranch as against

the Tejon Ranch Defendants on its alleged receipt of a

Spanish land grant, its rights under the 1849 Treaty with the

Utah, and its negotiation of Treaty D with the federal

government. However, the district court correctly concluded

that the Tribe’s failure to present a claim to the Commission

pursuant to the California Land Claims Act of 1851

extinguished its title, that the Treaty with the Utah did not

convey land rights to the signatory tribes or recognize

aboriginal title, and that Treaty D was never ratified and

conveyed no rights.

The Tribe asserts that “[i]n 1777, the Spanish government

granted the Kawaiisu land in what would become the State of

California.” The only support for this assertion is its alleged

presence on Diseno Maps from that year created by Father

Francisco Garces.5 Even assuming that the Kawaiisu

5 We note, however, that in its Second Amended Complaint, and in the

Tribe’s opposition to the Tejon Ranch Defendants’ motion to dismiss the

Third Amended Complaint, the Tribe argued that its land rights explicitly

do not derive from any Spanish or Mexican grant.

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ROBINSON V. JEWELL 13

possessed such a grant, the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe

Hidalgo alone were insufficient to preserve it. The Land

Claims Act of 1851 required that “each and every person

claiming lands in California by virtue of any right or title

derived from the Spanish or Mexican government, shall

present the same to the said commissioners . . . .” 9 Stat. 631,

§ 8. Presentation to the Commission was the only avenue

allowed by the Act for preservation of claims and the

issuance of a patent. Section 13 of the Act provides that “all

lands the claims to which shall not have been presented to the

said commissioners within two years after the date of this act,

shall be deemed, held and considered as part of the public

domain of the United States.” Id. § 13. The Tribe concedes

that it did not present any claims to the Commission within

the statutory time frame.

The Tribe claims land rights were bestowed by the

subsequent Treatywith the Utah, or, alternatively, argues that

its participation in Treaty D constituted substantial

compliance with the Act of 1851. Neither argument is

persuasive.

The Treaty with the Utah did not grant the Tribe title to

Tejon Ranch, nor did it recognize aboriginal title of any of the

signatory tribes, including the Kawaiisu. Aboriginal title

“means mere possession not specifically recognized as

ownership by Congress.” Tee-Hit-Ton Indians v. United

States, 348 U.S. 272, 279 (1955). Absent such recognition by

Congress, aboriginal right of occupancy can be terminated by

the sovereign at any time “without any legally enforceable

obligation to compensate the Indians.” Id. Recognition of

aboriginal title requires a clear statement from Congress

unequivocally granting legal rights. See Uintah Ute Indians

of Utah v. United States, 28 Fed. Cl. 768, 786 (Fed. Cl. 1993)

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14 ROBINSON V. JEWELL

(“Recognition of Indian title may take various forms, but such

recognition must manifest a definite intention to accord legal

rights.”). “The Congress must affirmatively intend to grant

the right to occupy and use the land permanently. By

‘recognition,’ the courts have meant that Congress intended

to acknowledge . . . to Indian tribes rights in land which were

in addition to the Indians’ traditional use and occupancy

rights exercised only with the permission of the sovereign.” 

Sac & Fox Tribe v. United States, 315 F.2d 896, 900 (Ct. Cl.

1963) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

The question of whether the Treaty with the Utah created

any enforceable property rights has been addressed by the

Court of Federal Claims, which determined in 1993 that the

1849 treaty did not recognize Indian title. Uintah Ute

Indians, 28 Fed. Cl. at 786. As that court observed, “Article

VII of the 1849 treaty does not recognize title because the

boundaries of aboriginal lands were to be settled in the future. 

By its terms the treaty does not designate, settle, adjust,

define, or assign limits or boundaries to plaintiff; it leaves

such matters to the future. Consequently, the treaty cannot be

said to recognize Indian title.”

The district court correctly adopted the reasoning of

Uintah Ute Indians. By referring to “limits which may be

assigned [the Utahs]” that they would be “bound to confine

themself to,” the Treaty’s language indicates that any rights

to the land the Indians occupied at the time of its execution

were not recognized by the United States government. Treaty

with the Utah, art. VII. We cannot assume that Congress

would have intended through its ratification of the Treaty

with the Utah to grant title to the vast, then-indeterminate

expanses of land occupied by the various signatory tribes. 

The Treaty’s language points to its aims of promoting

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ROBINSON V. JEWELL 15

peaceful relations and encouraging the Indians to adopt a

more geographically constrained agrarian mode of living. 

Id.6

Treaty D, executed in 1851 by the Kawaiisu and the

United States, was never ratified by the Senate and thus

carries no legal effect. See U.S. Const. Art. II, § 2, cl. 2. The

treaty itself contained language to that effect, stating that it

would “be binding on the contracting parties when ratified

and confirmed by the President and Senate of the United

States of America.” The Kawaiisu argue that through its

participation in Treaty D, the Tribe “substantially complied”

with the Act of 1851 and thus perfected title tracing to its

alleged Spanish land grant or the Treaty with the Utah. This

argument also fails. The Act of 1851 provides for no

alternative to presenting one’s claims to the Commission.

TreatyD granted no land rights, nor did it create any other

enforceable rights, as it was never ratified and is thus a legal

nullity.

7

It was also insufficient for the purposes of the Act of

6 The Tribe also contends that “the district court’s interpretation of the

Treaty with the Utahs was fatally flawed because the court failed to

consider how the Kawaiisu interpreted the Treaty, as the Supreme Court

requires.” However, “[t]he interpretation of a treaty is a question of law

and not a matter of fact.” United States ex rel Chunie v. Ringrose,

788 F.2d 638, 643 n.2 (9th Cir. 1986); see also Sioux Tribe v. United

States, 205 Ct. Cl. 148, 158 (Ct. Cl. 1974) (“We have repeatedly held that

the interpretation of an Indian treaty is a question of law, not a matter of

fact.”). As in Chunie, the issue of whether the Treaty with the Utah

granted any enforceable rights is relatively settled as a matter of law.

7 The district court and Tejon Defendants point out that the Kawaiisu

were partially compensated for the failure of the United States to ratify

Treaty D. A 1942 settlement negotiated by Earl Warren, then-Attorney

General of California, obtained over five million dollars in compensation

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16 ROBINSON V. JEWELL

1851’s requirement that any parties claiming title to land in

California under Spanish or Mexican grants present their

claims to the Commission.

Subsequent case law established that the Act of 1851 fully

extinguished any existing aboriginal title or unregistered land

grants. In 1901, the Supreme Court held in Barker v. Harvey,

181 U.S. 481, that even perfect title was subject to the

presentation requirement of the Act of 1851, as were claims

by Mission Indians derived from Mexican land grants. Id. at

491 (“If these Indians had any claims founded on the action

of the Mexican government they abandoned them by not

presenting them to the commission for consideration.”). The

Court further suggested that the Act itself extinguished

aboriginal title: “Surely a claimant would have little reason

for presenting to the land commission his claim to land, and

securing a confirmation of that claim, if the only result was to

transfer the naked fee to him, burdened by an Indian right of

permanent occupancy.” Id. at 492.

This construction was applied to extinguish aboriginal

title in California. Super v. Work extended the rationale to

nomadic, non-Mission Indians. See 3 F.2d 90 (D.C. Cir.

for “the Indians of California” for the federal government’s failure to

ratify eighteen treaties with Native Americans, including Treaty D. See

Indians of California by Webb v. United States, 98 Ct. Cl. 583 (Ct. Cl.

1942). This litigation was made possible by an Act of Congress in 1928

granting jurisdiction to the court of claims to hear such cases. The Indians

of California Act, 25 U.S.C. § 651. The Court of Claims determined that

the Act granted a right of action for an equitable claim, not a legal one,

“allowing all the Indians of California to recover the amount specified in

these unratified treaties, both in the value of the land promised to be set

aside and the other compensation provided.” Indians of California, 98 Ct.

Cl. at 598.

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ROBINSON V. JEWELL 17

1925), aff’d per curiam, 271 U.S. 643 (1926). We declined

to create an exception to the “extensive reach” of the Act for

the indigenous occupants of the Santa Barbara Islands. See

United States ex rel. Chunie v. Ringrose, 788 F.2d 638, 646

(9th Cir. 1986) (holding that the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

did not convert tribe’s aboriginal title into recognized title

and that its aboriginal title was extinguished by its failure to

present its claim under the Act of 1851).

The Supreme Court in United States v. Title Insurance &

Trust Co., 265 U.S. 472 (1924), applied the rule to a dispute

involving one of the very land patents at issue in this case. 

Despite the condition placed on an 1843 Mexican land that

the Tejon Mission Indians would be allowed to continue to

reside there under the protection of the grantees, the Court

held that the land patent issued pursuant to the grantees’

presentation to the Commission under the Act of 1851

“passed the full title, unincumbered [sic] by any right in the

Indians” to occupy and use the lands. Id. at 482. The Court’s

opinion emphasized the especial importance of repose in

matters involving land, where titles are “purchased on the

faith of their stability.” Id. at 487 (“Doubtful questions on

subjects of this nature, when once decided, should be

considered no longer doubtful or subject to change.” (internal

quotation marks and citation omitted)).

Thus, the district court correctly concluded that the Tribe

has no cognizable ownership interest in the Tejon Ranch.

B

The Tribe also complains about numerous acts of alleged

forgery and deception on the part of Edward F. Beale and

others in obtaining patents for the four Mexican land grants

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18 ROBINSON V. JEWELL

comprising Tejon Ranch. On this basis, the Tribe contends

that Tejon Ranch Defendants’ title—acquired, ultimately,

from Beale’s patents—is defective. However, all the alleged

acts occurred prior to the submission of the claims to the

Commission pursuant to the Land Claims Act of 1851. The

Commission confirmed all four of the claims, and at least one

of the patents has survived a challenge in court. See United

States v. Title Ins. & Trust Co., 288 F. 821 (9th Cir. 1923),

aff’d, 265 U.S. 472 (1924). The district court, pointing to the

value of stability identified by the Supreme Court in Title

Insurance, 265 U.S. at 484, concluded that “Plaintiffs cannot

now challenge the validity of United States issued land

patents after over a century of time has elapsed.”

IV

The Tribe also claims that it owns a 49,000-acre subset of

Tejon Ranch, known historically as the Tejon or Sebastian

Reservation (“Reservation”), alleging that a reservation

reserved to the Tribe was established pursuant to the Act of

1853. The Tribe claims that the Reservation, once

established, was never terminated and that it possesses

superior title to the parcel. The district court properly

rejected the claim.

The Tribe argues that the Reservation was created

pursuant to the Act of Congress of 1853 and that it survived

a subsequent Act of Congress of 1864. In support of its claim,

the Tribe cites two letters from the months immediately

following the passage in 1853: one from President Franklin

Pierce to Interior Secretary Robert McCelland, and a second

from Secretary McClelland to Edward F. Beale,

Superintendent of Indian Affairs for California and Nevada.

While these letters certainly establish that the President

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ROBINSON V. JEWELL 19

directed his officers to execute a plan for creating

reservations in California, that plan lacks specificityand there

is no evidence that the President ever approved the creation

of the Tejon Reservation. Thus, the district court properly

concluded that it “was not a reservation established by the

President and therefore cannot provide legal rights to

plaintiffs.”

Further, any rights that the Tribe possessed were

extinguished by the Act of 1864, which superseded the Acts

of 1853 and 1855 by allowing only four reservations in

California. Shermoen v. United States, 982 F.2d 1312, 1315

(9th Cir. 1992). Mattz v. Arnett, 412 U.S. 481 (1973),

articulates a relatively high standard for Congressional

termination of an Indian reservation: “A congressional

determination to terminate [an Indian reservation] must be

expressed on the face of the Act or be clear from the

surrounding circumstances and legislative history.” Id. at

505. The district court properly rejected the Tribe’s claims of

ownership in the Reservation.

V

The Tribe’s claims against Kern County are contingent

upon the establishment of ownership in the Tejon Ranch. 

Because its ownership claim fails, so do its claims against

Kern County. Robinson’s individual claims against Kern

County are waived for failure to present a “specific, cogent

argument for our consideration” on appeal. Greenwood,

28 F.3d at 977.

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20 ROBINSON V. JEWELL

VI

The district court properly determined that the Tribe has

no ownership interest in the Tejon Ranch and that no

reservation was established. The claims against Kern County

are subsumed into the ownership determination. The claims

originally asserted against the Secretary, along with

Robinson’s individual claims, were waived for failure to

assert on appeal. We decline to consider the Tribe’s new

arguments on appeal. We need not reach any other issue

urged on appeal.8

AFFIRMED.

8 The Tejon Ranch Defendants and Kern County contend that we lack

jurisdiction, arguing that ourAppellateCommissioner erroneouslygranted

the Tribe’s motion to reinstate the appeal. A motions panel of our court

has already considered, and rejected, these arguments, and we conclude

the Appellate Commissioner acted within his discretion in granting the

reinstatement motion.

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