Source: http://openjurist.org/249/f3d/1364/white-mountain-apache-tribe-v-united-states-
Timestamp: 2013-12-11 05:30:47
Document Index: 682739568

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 277', '§ 13', '§ 470', '§ 1491', '§ 331', '§ 1491', '§ 1295', '§ 1491', '§ 1505', '§ 1505', '§ 1505', '§ 1491', '§ 1491', '§ 13', '§ 470', '§ 462', '§ 2005', '§ 32', '§ 177', '§ 4043', '§ 2']

249 F3d 1364 White Mountain Apache Tribe v. United States | OpenJurist
249 F. 3d 1364 - White Mountain Apache Tribe v. United States Home249 f3d 1364 white mountain apache tribe v. united states 249 F3d 1364 White Mountain Apache Tribe v. United States 249 F.3d 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2001)
WHITE MOUNTAIN APACHE TRIBE, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT,v.UNITED STATES, DEFENDANT-APPELLEE.
No. 00-5044
Appealed from: United States Court of Federal Claims, Judge Nancy Firestone
Robert C. Brauchli, Brauchli & Brauchli, P.C., of Tucson, Arizona, argued for plaintiff-appellant.
Elizabeth Ann Peterson, Attorney, Appellate Section, Environment & Natural Resources Division, Department of Justice, of Washington, Dc, argued for defendant-appellee. With her on the brief was Lois J. Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General.
This case presents the question of whether a 1960 Act of Congress, Pub. L. No. 86-392, 74 Stat. 8 (1960) (the "1960 Act"), obligates the United States to maintain or restore certain property and buildings held by the United States in trust for the White Mountain Apache Tribe (the "Tribe")1 so that the Tribe can maintain a suit for damages in the Court of Federal Claims. We hold that it does, though the obligation created is narrower than that claimed by the Tribe. We accordingly reverse and remand the decision of the Court of Federal Claims in White Mountain Apache Tribe v. United States, 46 Fed. Cl. 20 (1999), for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
In 1870, the United States Army established a military post known as "Fort Apache" on approximately 7,500 acres of land within the borders of what later became the White Mountain Apache Tribe's reservation in Arizona.2 The Army operated Fort Apache as a military post until 1922, when Congress transferred control of the Fort to the Secretary of the Interior, and designated approximately 400 acres of the Fort for use as a boarding school for Native American children to fulfill certain unspecified treaty obligations of the United States. See 25 U.S.C. §§ 277 (1994).3
In 1960, Congress passed the 1960 Act which declared the Fort to be "held by the United States in trust for the White Mountain Apache Tribe, subject to the right of the Secretary of the Interior to use any part of the land and improvements for administrative or school purposes for as long as they are needed for that purpose." Pub. L. No. 86-392, 74 Stat. 8 (1960). Pursuant to that statute, the government allegedly controls and has the ability to use approximately thirty-five buildings on the site. The Court of Federal Claims found, and the parties do not dispute, that a small number of students are currently enrolled in the school, and that "the future of the school as a viable institution is apparently under review." White Mountain Apache Tribe, 46 Fed. Cl. at 22 n.2. According to the parties, the government has offered to terminate its trusteeship over an unspecified number of the buildings and to transfer control of them to the Tribe. The Tribe, however, has refused to accept that offer unless and until the government rehabilitates the buildings. The record does not reveal whether the United States has turned over any of the buildings to the Tribe.
At issue in this appeal is the government's obligation as trustee to maintain and restore those buildings, which include, inter alia, barracks constructed by the United States Army, the Native American boarding school and student dormitories, and various administrative buildings constructed by the Department of the Interior.
According to the Tribe, the government has had exclusive access to and control over those buildings and has allowed many of them to fall into disrepair. The Tribe alleges, and the government does not dispute, that the Department of the Interior has condemned and demolished several buildings deemed to be unsafe. The Tribe contends that it has repeatedly requested, to no avail, that the Secretary of the Interior and the Bureau of Indian Affairs maintain and restore the trust property. In May of 1993, the Tribe adopted a "master plan"4 for the preservation and restoration of the Fort. In November of 1998, the Tribe commissioned an assessment of the trust property and obtained cost estimates for the repair and preservation of the buildings. According to that report, as of 1999, the total cost to rehabilitate the buildings amounted to approximately $14 million dollars. The government responds that it has indeed maintained and restored some of the thirty-five buildings, but acknowledges that others are dilapidated.5
On March 19, 1999, the Tribe commenced a breach of trust action in the Court of Federal Claims seeking $14 million dollars in damages for the government's alleged breach of "its fiduciary duty to maintain, protect, repair and preserve the Tribe's trust corpus." The Tribe alleged that its claim arose under the 1960 Act, as well as the Snyder Act (codified at 25 U.S.C. §§ 13), the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (codified at 16 U.SC. §§ 470 et seq.) and a variety of other federal statutes and regulations.
The government filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted and for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. In that motion, the government argued that neither the 1960 Act, nor any of the other statutes and regulations cited by the Tribe, imposed an obligation on the United States to maintain or restore the buildings held in trust for the Tribe, and that the Tribe had not stated a cognizable claim for money damages for the government's alleged mismanagement of that trust property. In addition, the government contended that the Tribe's breach of trust claim, even if otherwise valid, accrued outside the six-year statute of limitations period governing claims brought against the United States under 28 U.S.C. §§§§ 1491 and 1505.
The Court of Federal Claims agreed with the government that the Tribe had failed to prove the existence of a fiduciary obligation on the part of the United States that would, if breached, give rise to a claim for money damages, and dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim. In reaching that decision, the court relied on two Supreme Court cases which establish the principles governing breach of trust claims by Native Americans against the United States, United States v. Mitchell, 445 U.S. 535 (1980) ("Mitchell I"), and United States v. Mitchell, 463 U.S. 206 (1983) ("Mitchell II").6 The Court of Federal Claims found that the language of the 1960 Act "creates a limited, or bare trust relationship between the government and the Tribe," akin to the trust relationship created by the General Allotment Act of 1887, 24 Stat. 388, codified at 25 U.S.C. §§ 331 et seq., which was found in Mitchell I not to impose fiduciary duties on the United States. White Mountain Apache Tribe, 46 Fed. Cl. at 26. The court further noted that unlike the statutes and regulations found to create fiduciary duties in Mitchell II, the 1960 Act "does not direct the government to manage the Fort Apache site for the benefit of the Tribe." Id. at 26.
The court also rejected the Tribe's argument that, even if the government had no fiduciary obligation to maintain the property for the benefit of the Tribe, the government was liable for its failure to prevent deterioration of the property under a "permissive waste" theory, by analogy to property law. (Under this theory, as articulated by the Tribe, the United States, as the current tenant of the trust property, would be required to take reasonable steps to prevent deterioration of the property in anticipation of its transfer to the Tribe.) The court disagreed, noting that "the difficulty with plaintiff's argument is that an action for permissive waste, even if proper, does not ordinarily give rise to a money claim." Id. at 28. Referencing a secondary source that summarized sections 188, 189 and 195 of the Restatement (First) of Property (1936), the court observed that "[t]he law on `permissive waste' provides that the appropriate remedy for permissive waste is generally an injunction," an equitable remedy that the Court of Federal Claims lacks jurisdiction to award. Id. But cf. Bobula v. United States Dep't of Justice, 970 F.2d 854, 858 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (noting that equitable relief is sometimes available in a suit brought under the Tucker Act, 28 U.S.C. §§ 1491, when that relief "is incidental to and collateral to a claim for money damages"). In short, the court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction over the Tribe's claim and accordingly dismissed the action for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. The court did not reach the government's statute of limitations argument. This timely appeal followed.
The question before us is whether the Court of Federal Claims erred in dismissing this breach of trust claim against the United States for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. We review that decision without deference. First Hartford Corp. Pension Plan & Trust v. United States, 194 F.3d 1279, 1286-87 (Fed. Cir. 1999). We have jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1295(a)(3) (1994).
The Tucker Act gives the Court of Federal Claims jurisdiction over broad categories of claims against the United States and constitutes a waiver of sovereign immunity as to those claims. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1491 (1994); Mitchell II, 463 U.S. at 212. A companion statute, the Indian Tucker Act, further confers jurisdiction on the Court of Federal Claims to hear any claim brought by a Native American tribe against the United States that "is one which otherwise would be cognizable in the Court of Federal Claims if the claimant were not an Indian tribe." 28 U.S.C. §§ 1505. Although the Tribe premised jurisdiction in the Court of Federal Claims upon both statutes, it is §§ 1505 that primarily confers jurisdiction over this action.
However, it is axiomatic that these two statutes are merely jurisdictional and do not create "any substantive right enforceable against the United States for money damages." Mitchell II, 463 U.S. at 216 (discussing the Tucker Act); Mitchell I, 445 U.S. at 540 ("It follows that 28 U.S.C. §§ 1505 no more confers a substantive right against the United States to recover money damages than does 28 U.S.C. §§ 1491."). Thus, in order to state a claim, the Tribe must point to some other source of law, such as "the Constitution, or any Act of Congress or any regulation of an executive department" that imposes an obligation on the United States to repair and preserve the Tribe's trust property. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1491(a)(1). The Tribe must also demonstrate that the source of law relied upon "can fairly be interpreted as mandating compensation by the Federal Government for the damages sustained." Mitchell II, 463 U.S. at 217 (quoting United States v. Testan, 424 U.S. 392, 400 (1976)).
Before the Court of Federal Claims and on this appeal, the Tribe argued that a variety of statutes and regulations, other than the 1960 Act, impose fiduciary obligations upon the United States. We disagree.
The Snyder Act governs the general appropriations of the Bureau of Indian Affairs ("BIA"). It provides, in pertinent part, that the BIA "shall direct, supervise, and expend such monies as Congress may from time to time appropriate, for the benefit, care, and assistance of the Indians throughout the United States for the following purposes: . . . For industrial assistance and advancement and general administration of Indian property. . . . For the enlargement, extension, improvement, and repair of the buildings and grounds of existing plants and projects." 25 U.S.C. §§ 13 (emphases added). We agree with the Court of Federal Claims that this statute fails "to provide a basis for a money-mandating claim as laid out in Mitchell II." White Mountain Apache Tribe, 46 Fed. Cl. at 26. Indeed, in Lincoln v. Vigil, 508 U.S. 182, 194 (1993), the Supreme Court held that the "general terms" of the Snyder Act do not require expenditure of general appropriations on specific programs for particular classes of Native Americans. See also Vigil v. Andrus, 667 F.2d 931, 934 (10th Cir. 1982) (holding that language of the Act is "too broad to support a conclusion that Congress has expressly appropriated funds for lunches for all Indian school children").
While other statutes or regulations relied on by the Tribe may impose obligations on federal agencies, none of these statutes or regulations imposes fiduciary obligations that would lead to a claim for money damages. See the National Historic Preservation Act ("NHPA"), 16 U.S.C. §§ 470 et seq. (requiring federal agencies to manage and maintain historic properties under their control); the Historic Sites, Buildings, Objects, and Antiquities Act of 1935, 16 U.S.C. §§ 462(f) (requiring Secretary of the Interior, inter alia, to "[r]estore, reconstruct, rehabilitate, preserve and maintain" any historic or prehistoric buildings or property); Title XI of the Education Amendments Act of 1978, 25 U.S.C. §§ 2005 (requiring the Secretary of the Interior to bring "all schools, dormitories, and other facilities" operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs "into compliance with all applicable Federal, tribal, or State health and safety standards"); the Improving America's Schools Act of 1994, 25 C.F.R. §§ 32.4(s)(2) (requiring federal government to "[m]aintain all school and residential facilities to meet appropriate Tribal, State or Federal safety, health and child care standards"); 25 U.S.C. §§ 177 (precluding conveyance of Native American lands without United States' approval); the American Indian Trust Fund Management Act of 1994, 25 U.S.C. §§ 4043(c)(5)(C)(ii) (requiring Special Trustee for Native Americans to certify that the Department of the Interior's budget requests to Congress are adequate to "discharge, effectively and efficiently, the Secretary's trust responsibilities" to Native Americans). Thus we find that none of these statutes or regulations "can fairly be interpreted as mandating compensation by the Federal Government for the damages sustained," Mitchell II, 463 U.S. at 216-17, to the trust property.
Accordingly, we turn our attention to the 1960 Act.
As noted earlier, the 1960 Act provides, in pertinent part, that certain lands and improvements thereon shall "be held by the United States in trust for the White Mountain Apache Tribe, subject to the right of the Secretary of the Interior to use" the property "for administrative or school purposes." Pub. L. No. 86-392, 74 Stat. 8 (1960).
Both the Tribe and the United States in their briefs agree that the 1960 Act creates a "trust."7 The statute itself states that the land and "improvements thereon" are held "in trust" for the Tribe. Moreover, it is well-established that a common law trust arises when three elements are present, namely, a trustee, a beneficiary, and a trust corpus. Restatement (Second) of Trusts §§ 2 cmt. h (1959); see also Mitchell II, 463 U.S. at 225; Cheyenne-Arapahoe Tribes v. United States, 966 F.2d 583, 589 (10th Cir. 1992) (listing elements of common-law trust), cert. denied, 507 U.S. 1003 (1993). In this case, all of the necessary elements of a common-law trust are present: a trustee (the United States), a beneficiary (the Tribe) and a trust corpus (the land and buildings held in trust).
However, the mere fact that the 1960 Act creates a trust relationship does not end the inquiry. We must also determine whether there is a fiduciary