Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-05069/USCOURTS-ca13-15-05069-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ramona Two Shields
Appellant
United States
Appellee
Mary Louise Defender Wilson
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

RAMONA TWO SHIELDS, MARY LOUISE 

DEFENDER WILSON, INDIVIDUALLY, AND ON 

BEHALF OF ALL OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED,

Plaintiffs-Appellants

v.

UNITED STATES,

Defendant-Appellee

______________________ 

2015-5069

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Court of Federal 

Claims in No. 1:13-cv-00090-LB, Judge Lawrence J. 

Block.

______________________ 

Decided: April 27, 2016

______________________ 

KENNETH E. MCNEIL, Susman Godfrey LLP, Houston, 

TX, argued for plaintiffs-appellants. Also represented by 

SHAWN L. RAYMOND; ANDRES HEALY, Seattle, WA; NANCIE 

GAIL MARZULLA, Marzulla Law, LLC, Washington, DC. 

ROBERT HARRIS OAKLEY, Environment and Natural 

Resources Division, United States Department of Justice, 

Washington, DC, argued for defendant-appellee. Also 

represented by JOHN C. CRUDEN. 

______________________ 

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2 TWO SHIELDS v. US

Before PROST, Chief Judge, MOORE and TARANTO, Circuit 

Judges.

PROST, Chief Judge. 

Appellants Ramona Two Shields and Mary Louise Defender Wilson brought this action against the United 

States, seeking redress for themselves and other Native 

Americans in connection with the government’s alleged 

mismanagement of oil-and-gas leases on Indian allotment 

land. The United States Court of Federal Claims found in 

favor of the government, granting summary judgment on 

Count I and dismissing Counts II and III. J.A. 1–30. We 

affirm.

I 

Pursuant to the General Allotment Act of 1887 and 

the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the United States 

is the trustee of millions of acres of Indian allotment land. 

The Bureau of Indian Affairs (“BIA”), under the Secretary 

of the Interior, is the federal bureau responsible for 

managing the trust lands. 

Much of this case turns on events from a prior case, 

commonly referred to as the Cobell litigation. We therefore begin with a discussion of the facts and circumstances surrounding that case. 

A 

In 1996, the Cobell class action lawsuit was filed on 

behalf of more than 300,000 Native Americans. The

plaintiffs alleged that the government had mismanaged 

their Individual Indian Money (“IIM”) accounts by failing 

to account for billions of dollars relating to leases of 

allotment land for oil extractions and logging. The litigation was complex and drawn-out, and eventually settled 

in 2011. See Cobell v. Salazar, No. 96-1285, 2011 WL 

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10676927 (D.D.C. July 27, 2011). It is the details of the 

Cobell settlement that are relevant here. 

The Cobell settlement provided that, following the enactment of legislation to carry it out, an amended complaint would be filed. The amended complaint set forth

several different categories of claims. One was “historical 

accounting claims” asserted by members of the “historical 

accounting class”—these claims were closely tied to the 

government’s mismanagement of IIM accounts that was 

the focus of the original complaint. J.A. 652. Another 

category of claims was much broader—it included any 

“land administration claims” held by the “trust administration class,” a class defined as including those individuals that held, as of the Record Date of September 30, 

2009, “a recorded or other demonstrable ownership interest in land held in trust or restricted status.” J.A. 656. 

The land administration claims were broadly defined as 

any “known and unknown claims that have been or could 

have been asserted through the Record Date [of September 30, 2009] for Interior Defendants’ alleged breach of 

trust and fiduciary mismanagement of land, oil, natural 

gas, mineral, timber, grazing, water and other resources 

and rights.” J.A. 653. 

Importantly, the settlement agreement included an 

opt-out provision. Members of the trust administration 

class who failed to opt out of the settlement would be 

“deemed to have released, waived, and forever discharged” the government from any claims falling within 

the scope of the settlement, including any land administration claims. J.A. 686. 

In December of 2010, Congress passed the Claims 

Resolution Act of 2010, which ratified the settlement and 

funded it with $3.4 billion. See Pub. L. 111-291, 124 Stat. 

3064 (Dec. 8, 2010). The amended complaint was duly 

filed with the district court, the settlement approved, and 

judgment entered in 2011. Cobell, 2011 WL 10676927. In 

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accordance with the settlement terms, the district court 

provided notice of the settlement, including class members’ opt-out right. The fairness of the opt-out process 

was challenged in court (including alleged violations of 

Fifth Amendment due process and the notice provisions of 

Fed. R. Civ. Pro. 23), but those challenges were ultimately 

rejected. See id., aff’d, 679 F.3d 909 (D.C. Cir. 2012), cert 

denied, 133 S. Ct. 543 (2012). 

B 

Appellants in this case, Ms. Two Shields and Ms. 

Defender Wilson, are “Indian allotees” who hold interests 

in allotment land located on the Fort Berthold Indian 

Reservation in North Dakota. Appellants’ allotments are 

located on part of the Bakken Oil Shale—one of the 

country’s largest contiguous deposits of oil and natural 

gas.

Pursuant to legislation enacted in 1998, Fort Berthold 

allotees cannot lease their oil-and-gas interests unless the 

Secretary approves the lease as “in the best interest of the 

Indian owners of the Indian Land.” Pub. L. No. 105-188, 

122 Stat. 620 (1998) (“Fort Berthold Act”) (amending 25 

U.S.C. § 396). This approval step is “intended to ensure 

that Indian mineral owners desiring to have their resources developed are assured that they will be developed 

in a manner that maximizes [the Indian owners’] best 

economic interests and minimizes any adverse environmental impacts or cultural impacts resulting from such 

development.” 25 C.F.R. § 212.1(a).

In 2013, Appellants sued the government for violating 

its obligations relating to approval of oil-and-gas leases on 

Fort Berthold allotment lands. Appellants alleged that, 

between 2006 and late 2009, a company called Dakota-3 

obtained leases on thousands of acres of Fort Berthold 

allotment land at below-market rates, then turned around 

and sold those leases to the Williams Companies in November of 2010 for a profit of nearly $900 million. AppelCase: 15-5069 Document: 45-2 Page: 4 Filed: 04/27/2016
TWO SHIELDS v. US 5

lants alleged that the BIA knew the below-market rates

were not in the Indian owners’ best interests, but nonetheless rubber-stamped every Dakota-3 lease. 

The complaint contained three counts. The primary 

one, Count I, alleged that the BIA breached its fiduciary 

duty under 25 U.S.C. § 396 to ensure leases are in the 

best interests of the Indian owners. The government 

sought summary judgment on this count, arguing that 

Appellants were barred from asserting it by the Cobell

settlement. It is undisputed that Ms. Two Shields and 

Ms. Defender Wilson are members of the trust administration class and that they failed to opt out of the settlement.1 The government therefore argued that it was 

entitled to summary judgment because Count I was a 

land administration claim released by Appellants’ failure 

to opt out of the Cobell settlement. The Court of Federal 

Claims agreed, granting summary judgment for the 

government. J.A. 14–21.

The complaint’s Counts II and III were made in the 

alternative. In Count II, Appellants alleged that the 

government breached a wholly separate fiduciary duty—a 

duty to have disclosed to Appellants, during the Cobell 

settlement proceedings, information relating to the Fort 

Berthold claims Appellants assert in this case. The Court 

of Federal Claims dismissed this count for lack of subject 

matter jurisdiction, agreeing with the government that 

there was no source of federal law that set forth the 

specific fiduciary duty alleged to be breached. J.A. 25–27. 

In Count III, Appellants alleged that the Claims Resolution Act of 2010 was a legislative taking of Counts I and 

 

1 While Appellants refused to concede that they 

were members of the trust administration class below, the 

Court of Federal Claims made a finding that they were 

members of the class, and Appellants do not dispute that 

finding on appeal. 

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II, in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The Court of 

Federal Claims dismissed this count as well, finding that 

Counts I and II did not amount to a cognizable property 

interest that could be the subject of a takings claim because they lacked a final judgment; that Appellants could 

not show an unjust taking occurred; and that, in any 

event, Count III appeared to be a due process claim 

“masquerading” as a takings claim, and therefore outside 

the Court of Federal Claims’ jurisdiction. J.A. 27–29.

Appellants now appeal to us. We have jurisdiction 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(3).

II

We review a summary judgment determination by the 

Court of Federal Claims “completely and independently, 

construing the facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” Am. Airlines, Inc. v. United States, 204 

F.3d 1103, 1108 (Fed. Cir. 2000). We review de novo the 

Court of Federal Claims’ dismissals based on lack of 

jurisdiction, Holmes v. United States, 657 F.3d 1301, 1309 

(Fed. Cir. 2011), and failure to state a claim for which 

relief can be granted, Hartford Fire Insurance Co. v. 

United States, 772 F.3d 1281, 1284 (Fed. Cir. 2014).

A 

We begin with what both parties agree is the primary

question in this case: whether the Cobell settlement bars 

Appellants from now asserting Count I against the government. We treat the Cobell settlement as a contract, 

VanDesande v. United States, 673 F.3d 1342, 1350 (Fed. 

Cir. 2012), the proper interpretation of which is a question of law, Landmark Land Co. v. FDIC, 256 F.3d 1365, 

1373 (Fed. Cir. 2001). Appellants offer four reasons why 

the Cobell settlement should not be interpreted as releasing their claims. We take each in turn.

First, Appellants argue that Count I does not fall 

within the definition of “land administration claims,” 

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which is limited to only those claims that could have been 

asserted by the Record Date of September 30, 2009. 

Appellants contend that the crucial event in this case was 

the November 2010 sale of leases from Dakota-3 to the 

Williams Companies, at a profit—that Appellants’ claims 

did not accrue until that time and thus do not meet the 

September 30, 2009 cut-off date for “land administration 

claims.”

Appellants are correct that “a claim does not accrue 

until all events necessary to fix the liability of the defendant have occurred.” Catawba Indian Tribe v. United 

States, 982 F.2d 1564, 1570 (Fed. Cir. 1993). But the 

November 2010 sale to the Williams Companies was not

an event necessary to fix the government’s purported 

liability. Instead, “[a] cause of action for breach of trust 

traditionally accrues when the trustee ‘repudiates’ the 

trust and the beneficiary has knowledge of that repudiation.” Shoshone Indian Tribe of Wind River Reservation v. 

United States, 364 F.3d 1339, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2004). “A 

trustee may repudiate the trust by express words or by 

taking actions inconsistent with his responsibilities as a 

trustee.” Id. Here, the government’s purported liability 

was fixed at the time it allegedly repudiated its trust 

duties as set forth in § 396—when it approved the Dakota-3 leases at below-market rates. Appellants do not 

argue that they lacked knowledge of the below-market 

rates at the time of approval, nor do they argue that any 

of the approvals occurred after the September 30, 2009 

cut-off date. Thus, although the November 2010 sale to 

the Williams Companies was, in some sense, a final link 

in the chain, Appellants’ claims had accrued, and could 

have been asserted, back when the BIA approved the 

below-market Dakota-3 leases. Count I therefore is a 

“land administration claim” settled by Cobell—it comprises “known and unknown claims that have been or could 

have been asserted through the Record Date [of September 30, 2009].” 

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8 TWO SHIELDS v. US

Second, Appellants argue that the Cobell settlement’s 

payment mechanics show that Count I was not released. 

The Cobell settlement provided that each member of the 

trust administration class would receive a base payment 

of approximately $800, plus an additional pro rata payment based on the amount of money deposited in the 

member’s IIM account from October 1, 1985, through 

September 30, 2009. Appellants argue that these payments “make[] no sense” as applied to the present case: 

that individuals received an average of only $1,600 under 

the Cobell settlement while they stand to receive anywhere from $100,000 to $150,000, if successful in this 

case. Opening Br. 30. Appellants argue that invoking 

Cobell’s release language in these circumstances would 

mean that Appellants “waived their claims for nothing.” 

Id. at 31.

Appellants’ argument is foreclosed by the simple fact 

that they chose not to opt out of the settlement. Even if 

the Cobell payments are less than satisfactory in rectifying the Fort Berthold harm, Appellants are bound by the 

settlement’s payment terms because they chose not to opt 

out. Further, challenges to the fairness and adequacy of 

the Cobell payment scheme have already been rejected. 

In 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia considered an argument that the Cobell 

settlement’s distribution scheme was unfair because some 

class members “likely possess more valuable claims than 

do others and . . . the per capita baseline payment undercompensates the former while over-compensating the 

latter, an inequity that the pro rata payment does not 

remedy.” Cobell v. Salazar, 679 F.3d at 918–19. The 

court rejected this argument and closed the issue, stating 

that “the distribution scheme is fair and ‘[i]t is hard to see 

how there [c]ould be a better result.’” Id. at 919 (citation 

omitted). The court further reasoned that “the existence 

of the opt-out alternative effectively negates any inference 

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TWO SHIELDS v. US 9

that those who did not exercise that option considered the 

settlement unfair.” Id. at 920. We agree.

Third, Appellants argue that the Cobell settlement 

should not be construed as releasing the government’s 

liability for Count I because the government failed to 

provide “full information” about Appellants’ claims (e.g., 

details regarding the specific damages and breaches 

relating to the Fort Berthold allegations) back when the 

Cobell release was effectuated. As support for its “full 

disclosure” theory, Appellants rely on a 2003 decision 

from the Court of Federal Claims, Shoshone Indian Tribe 

v. United States, 58 Fed. Cl. 542 (2003).

The Shoshone case does not stand for the broadsweeping proposition made by Appellants. At issue in 

that case was the government’s motion in limine to exclude evidence based on a letter sent by the Indian plaintiffs, which the government argued constituted a release 

of the plaintiffs’ claims. Id. at 544. The Court of Federal 

Claims denied the government’s motion to exclude. 

Relying on a general treatise on trusts, the court found 

that no release occurred because the government had not 

provided plaintiffs “with the full information plaintiffs 

would have needed before releasing the claims listed in 

the 1997 letter.” Id. at 545. This decision is not controlling here. First, we are not bound by decisions of the 

Court of Federal Claims. Second, as explained later in 

this opinion, more recent cases from the Supreme Court

make clear that a general trust relationship between the 

United States and its beneficiary is not enough to impose 

an information-disclosure obligation found nowhere in the 

governing statute. See infra pp. 12–14. 

Finally, Appellants argue that the named Cobell

plaintiffs lacked standing to assert Appellants’ Count I 

Fort Berthold claims. The Cobell settlement releases any 

claims “that were, or should have been, asserted in the 

Amended Complaint when it was filed.” J.A. 686. AppelCase: 15-5069 Document: 45-2 Page: 9 Filed: 04/27/2016
10 TWO SHIELDS v. US

lants point out that the named Cobell plaintiffs had no 

Fort Berthold oil-and-gas interests and the Cobell complaint did not contain a single fact regarding the specific 

Fort Berthold claims. They contend that the named 

Cobell plaintiffs lacked standing to assert Appellants’ 

Count I Fort Berthold claims because the “alignment of 

interest and injury must be exact” as between class representatives and the other class members. Opening Br. 35. 

Appellants are incorrect that exact alignment of injury 

is required between class representatives and other class 

members. Id. The question, instead, is whether or not 

the claims of the class representatives and other class 

members “implicate a significantly different set of concerns.” Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U.S. 244, 265 (2003). 

Here, it is clear that the concerns implicated by the 

Cobell claims and Appellants’ Count I claims are not 

significantly different. Appellants assert in this case that 

the BIA approved leases that were below market value, 

and therefore were not in their “best interests” as required by the Fort Berthold Act. Those concerns are 

precisely the same as the ones implicated by Cobell’s land 

administration claims, which specifically included any 

alleged “[f]ailure to obtain fair market value on leases” 

and “failure to prudently negotiate leases” by the Secretary on Indian allotment land. J.A. 654. The fact that the 

named Cobell plaintiffs’ oil-and-gas interests may have 

been tied to a location other than Fort Berthold is of no 

moment—the alleged harm in both Cobell and this case is 

not significantly different. Likewise, the fact that the 

Cobell complaint did not specifically reference the Fort 

Berthold Act is also insignificant, as the “best interest” 

standard of the Fort Berthold Act adds little to the language already present in § 396. See 25 U.S.C. § 396 (“The 

Secretary of the Interior shall have the right to reject all 

bids [for mineral leases] whenever in his judgment the 

interests of the Indians will be served by so doing, and to 

advertise such lease for sale.”). There is no standing issue 

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TWO SHIELDS v. US 11

that precludes application of the Cobell release to Appellants’ Count I claims. 

For the aforementioned reasons, we reject all four of 

Appellants’ arguments as to why the Court of Federal 

Claims was wrong to construe the Cobell settlement as 

releasing their claims. 

We also reject Appellants’ contention that the Court of 

Federal Claims erred by arriving at its conclusion without 

first allowing discovery of extrinsic evidence regarding the 

facts and circumstances surrounding the negotiation and 

execution of the Cobell settlement. Appellants’ position is 

that this extrinsic context evidence must be considered in 

determining whether the Cobell release language applies 

to Appellants’ Count I claims. We disagree.

“Outside evidence may not be brought in to create an 

ambiguity where the language is clear.” City of Tacoma v. 

United States, 31 F.3d 1130, 1134 (Fed. Cir. 1994); see 

also R.B. Wright Constr. Co. v. United States, 919 F.2d 

1569, 1572 (Fed. Cir. 1990). Although we have noted that 

evidence of “trade practice and custom” should be considered when interpreting contracts, that is not the type of 

evidence Appellants seek to rely on here and, in any 

event, even that type of evidence cannot be used “to create 

an ambiguity where a contract was not reasonably susceptible of different interpretations at the time of contracting.” Metric Constructors, Inc. v. Nat’l Aeronautics & 

Space Admin., 169 F.3d 747, 751 (Fed. Cir. 1999); see also 

id. (warning against “according undue weight to [a] 

party’s purely post hoc explanations for its conduct”). 

Likewise, this is not a case where the court below erroneously relied on a general dictionary definition to ascertain 

the meaning of a contract, divorced from the context of the 

agreement. See Rockies Exp. Pipeline LLC v. Salazar, 730 

F.3d 1330, 1340–41 (Fed. Cir. 2013). Here, the language 

of the Cobell settlement is clear. As explained above, 

Appellants have failed to show any reason why Count I is 

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12 TWO SHIELDS v. US

not barred by its terms. We therefore affirm the Court of 

Federal Claims’ grant of summary judgment. 

B 

Appellants’ Count II alleges that, even if Count I is 

barred by Cobell, the government breached a wholly 

separate fiduciary duty—a duty to have disclosed to 

Appellants, during the Cobell settlement proceedings, 

information relating to the Fort Berthold claims Appellants assert in this case. Appellants rely on 25 U.S.C. 

§ 396 and its regulations as supplying the requisite statutory authority for this fiduciary duty. The Court of Federal Claims dismissed Count II for lack of jurisdiction, 

finding that § 396 does not supply the fiduciary duty 

alleged to be breached. We agree.

Both the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1491, and the Indian 

Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1505, create subject matter jurisdiction for the Court of Federal Claims over certain claims 

brought against the United States. There are “two hurdles that must be cleared” before jurisdiction can be 

invoked pursuant to these statutes. United States v. 

Navajo Nation, 556 U.S. 287, 291 (2009). “First, the tribe 

‘must identify a substantive source of law that establishes 

specific fiduciary or other duties, and allege that the 

Government has failed faithfully to perform those duties.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Navajo Nation, 537 

U.S. 488, 490 (2003) (Navajo Nation I)). If that threshold 

is passed, the court must then determine whether the 

relevant source of substantive law can be fairly interpreted as a money-mandating. Id.

Appellants’ Count II fails at the first hurdle. When 

determining whether the government owes a particular 

fiduciary duty, “the analysis must train on specific rightscreating or duty-imposing statutory or regulatory prescriptions.” Navajo Nation I, 537 U.S. at 506. Although

common-law principles can be used to inform the scope of 

liability that Congress has imposed, United States v. 

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TWO SHIELDS v. US 13

White Mountain Apache Tribe, 537 U.S. 465, 475–76 

(2003), “‘a general trust relationship between the United 

States and the Indian People’ . . . alone is insufficient to 

support jurisdiction under the Indian Tucker Act.” Navajo Nation I, 537 U.S. at 506 (quoting United States v. 

Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206, 225 (1983)). Rather, “the United 

States is only subject to those fiduciary duties that it 

specifically accepts by statute or regulation.” Hopi Tribe 

v. United States, 782 F.3d 662, 667 (Fed. Cir. 2015). 

The Supreme Court has found that some “statutes 

and regulations . . . clearly establish fiduciary obligations 

of the Government.” Mitchell, 463 U.S. at 226; id. at 220

(finding specific fiduciary duties of timber management in 

light of a statutory and regulatory scheme creating obligations on “virtually every aspect of forest management”); 

see also White Mountain Apache Tribe, 537 U.S. at 475

(finding specific fiduciary duties to maintain and preserve 

property that is “actually administer[ed]” in trust). But 

where the relevant statute cannot be fairly read as imposing the specific fiduciary duty alleged to be breached, the 

Court has refused to impose the obligation on the government. See Navajo Nation I, 537 U.S. at 507–13 (finding no specific fiduciary duties to ensure a specific rate of 

return on coal leases or to proscribe ex parte communications in an administrative appeal process); United States 

v. Jicarilla Apache Nation, 131 S. Ct. 2313, 2329–30 

(2011) (finding no specific fiduciary duty to disclose all 

information related to the administration of Indian 

trusts); see also Hopi Tribe, 782 F.3d at 668–71 (finding 

no specific fiduciary duty to ensure adequate water quality on the Hopi reservation).

Appellants here rely on 25 U.S.C. § 396 as creating a 

very specific fiduciary duty of the government—a duty to 

have “disclose[d] ‘full information’ to Two Shields or their 

counsel about their § 396 claims before securing their 

release.” Reply Br. 23. But nothing in § 396 imposes such 

an obligation. Section 396 is directed to the lease of 

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14 TWO SHIELDS v. US

Indian allotment land for mining purposes; it states that 

the Secretary “is authorized to perform any and all acts 

and make such rules and regulations as may be necessary” and gives to the Secretary “the right to reject all 

bids whenever in his judgment the interests of the Indians will be served by so doing.” 25 U.S.C. § 396. The Fort 

Berthold Act further obliges the Secretary to approve only 

those leases that it has determined to be “in the best 

interest of the Indian owners of the Indian land.” Fort

Berthold Act, § 1(a)(2)(A)(ii). The obligations imposed on 

the Secretary relate solely to the approval of mineral 

leases on allotted land; nothing in the statute creates 

litigation-related disclosure obligations, and certainly not 

the specific Cobell settlement disclosure obligations 

sought by Appellants in this case. Like the Supreme 

Court in Jicarilla, we conclude that the relied-upon 

statute here does not include a general duty “to disclose 

all information related to the administration of Indian 

trusts.” Jicarilla, 564 U.S. at 2330. Because Appellants 

point to no other source of law providing the fiduciary 

duty alleged to be breached, we affirm the Court of Federal Claims’ dismissal of Count II.

C 

Finally, in Count III, Appellants allege that if their 

Counts I and II fail, the Claims Resolution Act of 2010 

was a legislative taking of Counts I and II without just 

compensation, in violation of the Takings Clause of the 

Fifth Amendment. The Court of Federal Claims dismissed Count III for failure to state a claim. We agree 

with the dismissal, but not for the reasons relied on by 

the court. 

We assume here, contrary to the Court of Federal

Claims, J.A. 28, that Counts I and II constitute property 

protected by the Takings Clause. And we apply the 

requirements of the Takings Clause—the only Clause 

invoked by Count III and invoked by Appellants here—

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TWO SHIELDS v. US 15

without re-characterizing the claim as a due process 

claim. Cf. J.A. 28–29. We conclude that no taking occurred here.

The Claims Resolution Act of 2010 ratified the Cobell

settlement agreement. That settlement gave Appellants 

and other Cobell class members two options: accept the 

settlement terms and agree to releasing all covered claims 

against the government, or opt out of the settlement and 

retain the ability to pursue covered claims against the 

government. The choice was up to Appellants—they could 

give up their claims against the government, or they could 

retain them. By failing to exercise their opt-out right, 

Appellants voluntarily chose to forfeit their claims against 

the government—including Counts II and III. In these 

circumstances, no unjust taking occurred. 

Our sister circuit has reached the same conclusion in 

similar circumstances. See Littlewolf v. Lugan, 877 F.2d 

1058 (D.C. Cir. 1989). In Littlewolf, the D.C. Circuit 

rejected an argument by tribe members that the White 

Earth Reservation Land Settlement Act of 1985 was an 

unconstitutional taking in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Id. at 1059. That Act extinguished the Indians’ 

claims to land illegally transferred earlier in the century 

in return for payment of compensation based on the fair 

market value at the time of transfer plus five percent 

interest. Id. As an alternative to the statutory compensation, the Act also gave claimants the option of filing an 

action for judicially-determined compensation within six 

months of the issuance of the notice of the payment due 

them, in which case they would forgo their statutory 

compensation. Id. The D.C. Circuit affirmed the district 

court’s determination that no unjust taking occurred in 

those circumstances because “a Tucker Act ‘safety net’ 

suffices when ‘a statute’s “basic compensation scheme . . . 

is valid but could result in payment of less than the 

constitutional minimum.”’” Id. at 1065 (quoting Littlewolf 

v. Hodel, 681 F. Supp. 929, 946 (D.D.C. 1988) (quoting 

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16 TWO SHIELDS v. US

Regional Rail Reorganization Act Cases, 419 U.S. 102, 150 

(1974))). In other words, as the district court in that case 

put it, “[t]here is not taking” when “those affected are 

afforded a reasonable opportunity to bring suit.” Littlewolf v. Hodel, 681 F. Supp. at 944 (citing Texaco v. Short, 

454 U.S. 516, 531–32 (1982), Block v. N. Dakota, 461 U.S. 

273, 286 n.23 (1983), and Keller v. Dravo Corp., 441 F.2d 

1239, 1242 (5th Cir. 1971), cert denied, 404 U.S. 1017 

(1972)). The same rationale applies here.

The decision of the Court of Federal Claims is affirmed.

AFFIRMED

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