NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
UPPER LAKE POMO ASSOCIATION,

Plaintiff,
and JESSICA JACKSON,

Movant

- Appellant,

v. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA; DAVID L. BERNHARDT , Secretary of the Interior; CECIL ANDRUS, Former Secretary of the Interior; AMY DUTSCHKE; TROY BURDICK, Defendants

- Appellees,
and ROGERS C.B. MORTON,

Defendant, APRIL DIWALD,

Movant

- Appellee. No. 18

- 16764
D.C. No. 4:75

- cv - 00181

- PJH

MEMORANDUM *

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36

- 3. 

# FILED

MAR 16 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS2 Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California Phyllis J. Hamilton, Chief District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted February 14, 2020 San Francisco, California Before: RAWLINSON and CALLAHAN, Circuit Judges, and S. MURPHY, * * District Judge.
Plaintiff

- Appellant Jessica Jackson appeals the district court’s denial of her motion to hold federal officials in civil contempt of the district court’s 1979 Order
Grantin g Partial Summary Judgment (“Order”) and 1983 Order and Final Judgment on Claims for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief (“Judgment”). The Order and Judgment provided injunctive relief to members of the Upper Lake
Pomo Indian Tribe after the federal governm ent co nverted their trust lands to private property, in violation of substantive provisions of the California Rancheria
Act , Act of Aug. 18, 1958 , Pub. L. 85

- 671, 72 Stat. 619, as amended by the Act of August 11, 1964, Pub. L. 88

- 419, 78 Stat. 390

. The Or der and Judgmen t entitled
Tribe members

— including Jackson’s mother, Amerdine Snow McCloud, now
deceased

— to convey their deeded lands back to the United States via the Secretary of the Interior (“Secretary”) to be held in trust for the benefit of the Tribe , subject to certain conditions and procedural requirements discussed below

.

** The Honorable Stephen J. Murphy , III, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Michigan, sitting by designation.3

The question presented in this appeal is not whether the Secretary’s failure to restore McCloud’s property to trust status violated the district court’s Order and Judgment

. It is whether Jackson has shown that, in denying McCloud ’s ( and Jackson’s ) various requests to convey the property into trust, the Secretary (1) violated the Order and Judgment, “ (2) beyond substantial compliance, (3) not based on a good faith a nd reasonable interpretation

. . . , (4) by clear and convincing evidence. ” Labor/Cmty. Strategy Ctr. v. L.A. Cty. Metro. Transp.
Auth. , 564 F.3d 1115, 1123 (9th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted) . Furthermore,
Jackson must show that the district court, in de nying her motion, abused its discretion by “misapprehend[ing] the law or rest[ing] its decision on a clearly erroneous finding of a material fact.” Hallett v. Morgan , 296 F.3d 732, 749 (9th Cir. 2002).
We hold that Jackson has not met her burden. 1 Her argument rests almost entirely on the first sentence of paragraph i. of the Judgment, which recognizes the Secretary’s “continuing obligation to restore to trust status lands of the Upper Lake
Rancheria

. . . whenever possible.” She largely ignores the su bparagraphs that
follow , which set forth conditions and procedures for how “[r]estoration of trust status shall be accomplished

. ” But t hose subparagraphs are key here

.

1 B ecause the parties are familiar with the facts of this case, we do not discuss them at length here.4

First, as the g overnment points out, paragraph i.(3) of the Judgment expressly gives the Secretary authority, “[b]efore accepting any instrument of conveyance which has the effect of restoring trust status to lands within the Rancheria, . . . to approve or reject said instrument as to form.” The district court found that “the govern ment had reason to refuse each attempted conveyance,” including due to unnotarized grant deeds, unpaid property taxes, McCloud’s erroneous listing of the wrong Parcel , and, after McCloud’s death, the state probate matter. Jackson provides no counter argume nt that the Secretary ’s refusals were based on something other than “ a good faith and reasonable interpretation of the
order

. ” Labor/Cmty. Strategy Ctr. , 564 F.3d at 1123

. Second, paragraph i.(2) of the Judgment set s forth a one

- year time limit for a Tr ibe member “ to convey his or her interest to the United States, to be held in trust,” and paragraph i.(5) vests authority in the district court to modify “[t]he time limits for restoring trust status to lands of the Rancheria . . . upon application of
any party to this action showing good cause for such action [

. ] ” It is undisputed that McCloud (1) failed to submit her desired grant deed within one year of the Judgment, and (2) never asked the district court for an extension of the one

- year time limit for c onvey ing her property to trust status. 2

2 Though the district court did not explicitly address this issue, we may affirm on “any ground supported by the record.” Thompson v. Paul , 547 F.3d 1055, 1059 (9th Cir. 2008).5

We therefore agree with the district court that McCloud’s property was neither actively nor constructively restored to trust status before she died intestate
in 2001. Once ownership of the property is determined by the state probate court , the rightful owner is free to request restoration of the property to trust status at that
time

. As the district court noted, “the government has represented repeatedly that, notwithstanding the one

- year limitatio n provided by the 1983 Order, it will accept the Parcel into trust if petitioned to do so by its owners, once the state identifies the

true owners. ” The district court also stated that it “ will hold the government to that promise.” Jackson presents a symp athetic case. However, in light of the civil contempt standard, the plain text of the Order and Judgment, and the district court’s “wide
latitude in making a determination of whether there has been contemptuous defiance of its own orders,” Neebars, Inc. v . Long Bar Grinding, Inc. , 438 F.2d 47, 48 (9th Cir. 1971), Jackson cannot show that the district court abused its discretion in declining to hold federal officials in contempt. Accordingly, we AFFIRM.