Opinion ID: 185354
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Treasury Department

Text: 111 Appellants specifically object to the district court's decision to award relief against the Treasury Department. Treasury stipulated it would take actions to preserve trust-related documents, which the district court acknowledged might satisfactorily discharge the Department's duties. Cobell V, 91 F. Supp. 2d at 51. Moreover, appellants argue, there is no proof that the documents destroyed by the Treasury Department included anything necessary to render an accounting of the IIM trust accounts. At a more fundamental level, the government challenges the court's finding of any breach by the Treasury Department for failing to retain trust-related documents. While the 1994 Act does impose obligations upon the Treasury Department, there are no enumerated document retention obligations in the Act. Congress gave no indication that the government's trust responsibilities required it to alter the record destruction schedules set for the Treasury Department by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). 112 Appellants have stipulated that the federal government is the IIM beneficiaries' trustee and that the Treasury Secretary is a trustee-delegate. A trustee is required to preserve those documents necessary to fulfill the trustee's obligations to trust beneficiaries. This includes maintaining those documents that are necessary for an accounting. Therefore, insofar as the Treasury Department has records and documents that are necessary to perform an adequate accounting, the district court was correct in holding that the Department must maintain these records. The Treasury Department's failure to maintain such documents is a breach of its fiduciary duty. The destruction of potentially relevant IIM-related trust documents that may have been necessary for a complete accounting is clear evidence that the Department committed such a breach. See id. at 50 n.35 (citing Pls. Ex. 152, Treasury Declarations Re: Document Destruction, June 18, 1999). 5 As noted above, in the context of Indian trust obligations the Government, in both its executive and legislative branches, is held to a high standard of conduct, one consonant with its 'moral obligations of the highest obligation and trust.'  Jicarilla, 728 F.2d at 1563 (quoting Seminole Nation v. United States, 316 U.S. at 297). 113 Although the NARA guidelines direct the Treasury Department to destroy check records more than six years and seven months old, this cannot excuse the Treasury Department from its fiduciary obligations under the 1994 Act. Another agency's development, in consultation with the Treasury Department, of document retention regulations which allow for the destruction of trust-related documents cannot relieve the Treasury Department of its responsibilities. Not only are NARA's record retention schedules modified regularly to account to each agency's particular needs at a given point in time, but NARA typically approves the record retention schedule proposed by the agency. Thus, there is no basis for Treasury to contend that it was unable to maintain the records under federal rules.