Opinion ID: 355551
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Indian Law.

Text: 27 An equally compelling reason for applying federal law is the special relationship between the United States and the Omaha Indian Tribe and the nature of the interest litigated. The trial court rejected this position under the authority of Fontenelle v. Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, 298 F.Supp. 855 (D.Neb.1969), aff'd, 430 F.2d 143 (8th Cir. 1970), where the Nebraska federal district court applied Nebraska law in an accretion-avulsion dispute between the Omaha Indian Tribe and individual Indians who traced their title back through individual patents issued to their predecessors by the United States. 13 Instead, the trial court, finding no federal regulatory program involved 14 and no specific act of Congress which displaced state law, reasoned, citing Herron v. Choctaw & Chickasaw Nations, 228 F.2d 830 (10th Cir. 1956), and Francis v. Francis, 203 U.S. 233, 27 S.Ct. 129, 51 L.Ed. 165 (1906), that local law governed title disputes between the Indian tribe and private claimants. 433 F.Supp. at 61. 28 It has long been held that the rights and incidents of ownership attaching to grants made by the United States of public lands bounded on streams or other bodies of water, navigable or non-navigable, made without reservation or restriction, are to be construed as to their effect according to the law of the state in which the land lies. The fact that a conveyance disposes of tribal lands of Indians under guardianship does not alter the rule. See Oklahoma v. Texas, 258 U.S. 574, 595, 42 S.Ct. 406, 66 L.Ed. 771 (1922). The Fontenelle decision and the other cases cited by the trial court fall within this settled doctrine. In Packer v. Bird, 137 U.S. 661, 669, 11 S.Ct. 210, 212, 34 L.Ed. 819 (1891), the Court observed: 29 The courts of the United States will construe the grants of the general government without reference to the rules of construction adopted by the States for their grants; but whatever incidents or rights attach to the ownership of property conveyed by the government will be determined by the States, subject to the condition that their rules do not impair the efficacy of the grants or the use and enjoyment of the property by the grantee. 30 The present dispute is not related to incidents or rights flowing from a conveyance of public land or related to a patent grant of Indian allotment lands. Instead, the direct challenge made by the Iowa landowners here affects the boundary line to the reservation land itself, as it was originally contained in the Barrett Survey and established by the Treaty of 1854. The claims asserted by the defendants attempt to extinguish the aboriginal rights of the Omaha Indian Tribe, guaranteed by treaty, in these lands. 15 Here the Omaha Indian Tribe claims its right to occupy and possess the lands in question arises under federal law. Presumptively, at least, this right has never been extinguished. See discussion of 25 U.S.C. § 194 infra. Under the circumstances the Supreme Court's observation in Oneida Indian Nation v. County of Oneida, 414 U.S. 661, 677, 94 S.Ct. 772, 782, 39 L.Ed.2d 73 (1974), is applicable here: 31 In the present case, however, the assertion of a federal controversy does not rest solely on the claim of a right to possession derived from a federal grant of title whose scope will be governed by state law. Rather, it rests on the not insubstantial claim that federal law now protects, and has continuously protected from the time of the formation of the United States, possessory right to tribal lands, wholly apart from the application of state law principles which normally and separately protect a valid right of possession. 32 State law dealing with riparian rights cannot unilaterally extinguish or deprive Indians of their tribal lands. The land area involved in this appeal relates solely to the original reservation land. Therefore, germane here is the Supreme Court's statement in Oneida that: There being no federal statute making the statutory or decisional law of the State of New York applicable to the reservations, the controlling law remained federal law; and, absent federal statutory guidance, the governing rule of decision would be fashioned by the federal court in the mode of the common law. Id. at 674, 94 S.Ct. at 781. 16 Riparian ownership rights have been specifically held to be controlled by federal law where trust land is involved. 33 The nature and extent of riparian rights, if any, in the bed and banks of navigable waters is generally a matter of state law. This is a consequence of the rules that (1) the United States holds title to the bed and banks of navigable waters in trust for future states; and (2) upon admission of a state to the Union, the United States relinquishes to the state the ownership of the bed and banks of its navigable waters. The south half of Flathead Lake presents an exception. Title to the bed and banks of the south half of Flathead Lake below high water mark is held by the United States in trust for the Tribes. Thus, the basis for state determination of riparian rights is nonexistent. State law, therefore, is not applicable. 34 Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribes v. Namen, 380 F.Supp. 452, 461 (D.Mont.1974), aff'd, 534 F.2d 1376 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 929, 97 S.Ct. 336, 50 L.Ed.2d 300 (1976) (citation omitted). 17 35 See also United States v. Finch, 548 F.2d 822, 832-33 (9th Cir. 1976), vacated on other grounds, 433 U.S. 676, 97 S.Ct. 2909, 53 L.Ed.2d 1048 (1977). Cf. Bauman v. Choctaw-Chickasaw Nations, 333 F.2d 785, 787-89 (10th Cir. 1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 965, 85 S.Ct. 658, 13 L.Ed.2d 559 (1965). 36 Finding the land in dispute affects an interstate boundary at the time the controversial movements occurred, and because the Tribe's right asserted to Indian trust land arises under federal law, we hold that the governing law is federal law. 37