Opinion ID: 759493
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Procedural History of this Case

Text: 11 The Menominee Tribe brought this lawsuit seeking a declaration of their usufructuary rights off-reservation The Tribe contended that the 1831 Treaty reserved their right to hunt and fish on the lands they ceded both to the east and west of the Fox River, and that the right to fish and hunt on those lands had not been terminated by any subsequent treaty or act of Congress. Additionally, the Tribe asserted that it retains aboriginal fishing rights in Lake Winnebago and along the Wisconsin shores of Lake Michigan and the Wisconsin River. Finally, the Tribe claimed the right to harvest sturgeon off-reservation to compensate for the decrease in on-reservation sturgeon populations. The Tribe requested an injunction ordering the defendants to allow Menominee Indians to exercise their alleged off-reservation usufructuary rights free from regulation by the State. 12 The defendants moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the Tribe should be judicially estopped from asserting usufructuary rights arising out of the 1831 Treaty based on positions taken by the Tribe in prior litigation, and that the Treaties of 1848 and 1854 terminated any treaty-reserved or aboriginal rights the Menominee may have had on off-reservation lands. Additionally, the defendants argued that the 1831 Treaty, while reserving limited usufructuary rights for the Tribe, provided that certain events would extinguish or cancel those limited rights. Specifically, the defendants claimed that the terms of the 1831 Treaty limiting the Tribe's right to use the land east of the Fox River would terminate when the president offered the land for sale, and that the Tribe's right to use the land west of the Fox River was dependant upon having title to that land. The defendants contended that those terminating events (i.e. the president offered the land east of the river for sale and the Tribe ceded title to the land west of the river) occurred more than a century and a half ago and, therefore, the Tribe retains no off-reservation usufructuary rights. Finally, the defendants argued that the 1854 Treaty did not guarantee the Tribe any specific amount of sturgeon and, in any event, that the district court did not have the authority to grant the Tribe off-reservation fishing rights. 13 The district court judge granted the defendants' motion to dismiss. The district court dismissed the plaintiffs' sturgeon claim because it concluded that the Menominee Tribe reserve neither off-reservation fishing rights nor the right to a specific proportion of the sturgeon catch and, therefore, that the court did not have the authority to grant the relief requested. Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin v. Thompson, 922 F.Supp. 184, 214-15 (W.D.Wis.1996). The district judge concluded that the treaties were not ambiguous and therefore that the court was competent to interpret them. The court went on to hold that any usufructuary rights reserved in the 1831 Treaty were explicitly limited by extinguishing events, and that those extinguishing events had occurred. The trial judge further found that the 1848 Treaty was a removal treaty 3 which extinguished every and any tribal right to use or occupy the Wisconsin lands. Finally, the court concluded that positions taken by the Menominee Tribe in earlier litigation did not judicially estop the Tribe from asserting retention of usufructuary rights. Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin v. Thompson, 943 F.Supp. 999 (W.D.Wis.1996).