Opinion ID: 152512
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sherrill and Cayuga

Text: This Court's decision in Cayuga, upon which the district court relied in dismissing the bulk of the plaintiffs' claims, was itself based on the Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Sherrill, which the Cayuga panel found fundamentally to have changed the background legal standards for assessing ancient tribal land claims. Cayuga, 413 F.3d at 273. Sherrill involved about 17,000 acres scattered throughout the Counties of Madison and Oneida that were once part of the plaintiffs' ancestral lands and that were purchased on the open market by the New York Oneidas in 1997 and 1998. The New York Oneidas, citing Oneida II, argued that upon reacquiring this land, which represented less than 1.5% of the Counties' total area, the Oneida Indian Nation's ancient sovereignty over each individual parcel was revived, barring the City of Sherrill or the Counties of Madison and Oneida from requiring the plaintiffs to pay property taxes. The New York Oneidas sought equitable relief in the form of a declaration prohibiting, currently and in the future, the imposition of property taxes on the lands they had reacquired. Sherrill, 544 U.S. at 212, 125 S.Ct. 1478. The Court determined that such relief could not be granted: [W]e decline to project redress for the Tribe into the present and future, thereby disrupting the governance of central New York's counties and towns. Generations have passed during which non-Indians have owned and developed the area that once composed the Tribe's historic reservation. And at least since the middle years of the 19th century, most of the Oneidas have resided elsewhere. Given the longstanding, distinctly non-Indian character of the area and its inhabitants, the regulatory authority constantly exercised by New York State and its counties and towns, and the Oneidas' long delay in seeking judicial relief against parties other than the United States, we hold that the Tribe cannot unilaterally revive its ancient sovereignty, in whole or in part, over the parcels at issue. The Oneidas long ago relinquished the reins of government and cannot regain them through open-market purchases from current titleholders. Id. at 202-03, 125 S.Ct. 1478. The Court addressed a number of factors in reaching this conclusion. Although the United States appeared as amicus curiae on behalf of the New York Oneidas in Sherrill, the Supreme Court noted that [f]rom the early 1800's into the 1970's, the United States largely accepted, or was indifferent to, New York's governance of the land in question and the validity vel non of the Oneidas' sales to the State. Id. at 214, 125 S.Ct. 1478. Indeed, national policy through much of the early 1800's was designed to dislodge east coast lands from Indian possession. Id. at 214-15, 125 S.Ct. 1478. The Court found it relevant that the Oneidas did not seek to regain possession of their aboriginal lands by court decree until the 1970's and that the Oneidas for generations had predominantly sought relief not [from] New York or its local units but from the United States. Id. at 216, 219 n. 12, 125 S.Ct. 1478. During this long lapse of time, the properties had greatly increased in value and there had been dramatic changes in their character. Id. at 216-17, 125 S.Ct. 1478. The Court recognized the disruptive practical consequences that would flow from [a] checkerboard of alternating state and tribal jurisdiction in New York Statecreated unilaterally at [the plaintiffs'] behest. Id. at 219-20, 125 S.Ct. 1478. Evoking the doctrines of laches, acquiescence, and impossibility, the Court concluded that equitable considerations considerations arising out of the Oneidas' long delay in seeking relief, the attendant development of justified societal expectations relating to the governance of the lands in question, and the potential of the sought-after relief to disrupt those expectations precluded the Oneidas from obtaining their sought-after declaration. See id. at 214-21, 125 S.Ct. 1478. This Court concluded shortly after Sherrill was decided that because its claims were likewise indisputably disruptive, the Cayuga Indian Nation was barred by similar equitable considerations from seeking recompense for the ancient deprivation of its ancestral lands, even though these claims, unlike those in Sherrill, sounded primarily in law rather than equity, and even though only money damages were at issue. Cayuga, 413 F.3d at 275. Cayuga involved the Cayuga Indian Nation's claim to 64,015 acres of land that were ceded to New York in 1795 and 1807, allegedly in violation of both the Nonintercourse Act and the Treaty of Canandaigua. The Cayugas sought, inter alia, both ejectment of the current residents and trespass damages. The district court ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on liability, but determined that ejectment was not a proper remedy and thereafter conducted a jury trial on damages; the damages were limited to the fair market value of the property at the time of trial in 2000 and to fair rental value damages from 1795 to 1999. The trial resulted in a verdict against New York State that, with prejudgment interest, totaled $247,911,999.42. [5] On appeal, this Court determined that since the district court's rulings in Cayuga, Sherrill had dramatically altered the legal landscape against which ancient tribal land claims should be considered: We understand Sherrill to hold that equitable doctrines, such as laches, acquiescence, and impossibility, can, in appropriate circumstances, be applied to Indian land claims, even when such a claim is legally viable and within the statute of limitations. Id. at 273. The Court concluded that Sherrill 's concern with the New York Oneidas' claim had been with the disruptive nature of the claim itself, and that, accordingly, the equitable defenses invoked in Sherrill apply, not narrowly to claims seeking a revival of sovereignty, but to `disruptive' Indian land claims more generally, id. at 274, whether such claims are legal or equitable in character, see id. at 276, and whether or not the remedy sought is limited to an award of money damages, see id. at 274. The Court concluded that the doctrine of laches barred the Cayugas' claims, which it characterized as possessory claims that were by their nature disruptive in that they called into question settled land titles over a large swath of central New York State. Id. at 275. With regard specifically to the ejectment claim, the Court observed that [t]he fact that, nineteen years into the case, at the damages stage, the District Court substituted a monetary remedy for plaintiffs' preferred remedy of ejectment cannot salvage the claim, which was subject to dismissal ab initio.  Id. at 277-78 (footnote omitted). As for the trespass claim, the Court said, it is predicated entirely upon plaintiffs' possessory land claim and because plaintiffs are barred by laches from obtaining an order conferring possession in ejectment, no basis remains for finding such constructive possession or immediate right of possession as could support [trespass] damages. Id. at 278. The Court reversed the judgment of the district court in favor of the Cayugas and ordered judgment entered for the defendants.