Court Opinion

ID: 9452364
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:38:24.574992+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:11.147969
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Judge
(concurring in part and dissenting in part):
I join in the court’s opinion on the first claim, but dissent from the disposition of the demand for interest on the $172,762.04 awarded by the Indian Claims Commission.
The sole ground for this claim is Article 7 of the 1854 Treaty, 10 Stat. 1084, which provided:
And as the amount of the annual receipts from the sales of their lands, cannot now be ascertained, it is agreed that the President may, from time to time, and upon consultation with said Indians, determine how much of the net proceeds of said sales shall be paid them, and how much shall be invested in safe and profitable stocks, the interest to be annually paid to them, or expended for their benefit and improvement.
It is agreed that if this is read as containing an express provision for interest appellants can recover, otherwise not. See United States v. Alcea Band of Tillamooks, 341 U.S. 48, 49, 71 S.Ct. 552, 95 L.Ed. 738 (1951); Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes v. United States, 175 Ct.Cl. (May 13, 1966), cert. denied, Oct. 24, 1966, 385 U.S. 921, 87 S.Ct. 228. It is also settled that the mere fact that the United States did not pay the additional $172,000 in the 1850’s, as it should have, would not, in itself, bar the Tribe from now collecting interest to which it would otherwise be entitled. See United States v. Blackfeather, 155 U.S. 180, 192, 15 S.Ct. 64 (1894); Mille Lac Band of Chippewa Indians in State of Minn. v. United States, 51 Ct.Cl. 400, 407-408 (1916); Pawnee Tribe of Indians v. United States, 56 Ct.Cl. 1, 15 (1920); Menominee Tribe of Indians v. United States, 67 F.Supp. 972, 975, 107 Ct.Cl. 23, 33 (1946); Nez Perce Tribe v. United States, 176 Ct.Cl. (July 15, 1966). These decisions show that, if the treaty had said in precise terms that the sums received from the sales should be deposited in the treasury at interest, there would be no question that appellants’ position was correct. The issue for us is whether the actual words of the agreement gave the Peoria Tribe the same right to interest.
In resolving this question, we must remember that Indian treaties “are not to be interpreted narrowly, as sometimes may be writings expressed in words of art employed by conveyancers, but are to be construed in the sense in which naturally the Indians would understand them.” United States v. Shoshone Tribe, 304 U.S. 111, 116, 58 S.Ct. 794, 797, 82 L.Ed. 1213 (1938). “[T]hey are to be construed, so far as possible, in the sense in which the Indians understood them, and ‘in a spirit which generously *1007recognizes the full obligation of this nation to protect the interests of a dependent people.’ Tulee v. State of Washington, 315 U.S. 681, 684-685 [62 S.Ct. 862, 86 L.Ed. 1115].” Choctaw Nation of Indians v. United States, 318 U.S. 423, 432, 63 S.Ct. 672, 678, 87 L.Ed. 877 (19431.1
The 1854 treaty contemplated that the proceeds of the land sales would either be paid to the Indians, from time to time, or be invested by the Government so as to bear fruit.2 There are two problems with the phrasing. The first is that the directive to invest referred to “safe and profitable stocks”, with “the interest” to be paid over to or expended for the Tribe (emphasis added). To borrow the language of the Supreme Court in the Blackfeather case, supra, 155 U.S. at 192, 15 S.Ct. at 69, “while this is not literally an agreement to pay interest, it has substantially that effect”. In Blackfeather the provision was in the form of an annuity measured by five percent on the Indians’ money, but the Court looked through this shell to see that the treaty-parties intended the Indians to receive the normal proceeds from their funds. Here the treaty refers to “stocks” and “interest” from those stocks, but it seems clear that the signatories likewise desired the Indians to receive the increment normally earned (if they were not to have the money in their own hands). For some years before this 1854 treaty, the Federal Government construed similar agreements calling for investment in “safe and profitable stocks” yielding “interest” of not less than five per cent as being satisfied by an appropriation, from year to year, of a sum equal to five per cent interest. See Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Nov. 30, 1852, p. 10 (H.Doc. 1, pp. 300-01); Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1853, pp. 10-12 (H.Doc. 1, p. 263).3 The only change in the 1854 treaty was the deletion of the specific reference to five per cent; the reason for this change seems to have been the wish to assure the Indians the possibility of a greater amount obtainable from private investments, not to cut off the Indians’ right to the fair proceeds of their moneys which were retained by the Government and not handed over to them. Ibid. That right was preserved.
The other problem — the one with which the court’s opinion treats — arises from the possibility that the President might have immediately turned over the whole $172,000 to the Indians, if it had been paid in 1857, without retaining any for investment.4 This is, of course, a theoretical possibility, but it seems verj unlikely as a practical matter. The President would not hand over to these dependent Indians more than they needed *1008or could properly use for day-to-day expenses; nor could the Tribe expect to receive more than this. The comparable article of a contemporaneous treaty with the Delawares, 10 Stat. 1048, 1050 (1854), says expressly that the amounts to be paid over were to meet “current wants” and “reasonable wants”,5 and the Peoria Treaty would probably be interpreted in the same way. Thus, the President’s discretion was not at large, but was to be exercised in consultation with the Indians and according to the standard of their need. On that basis, it is most unlikely that the large sum of $172,000 would have been paid over rather than invested. Only a minimum of speculation is needed, in my opinion, to find that the money would have borne fruit if the United States had accounted for it in the 1850’s.
The Treaty’s use of “may”, rather than “shall”, should not be given the weight the court puts on it to show the unlimited character of the President’s discretion. This was not a carefully-drawn business contract between equals or even a Congressional enactment, but an Indian treaty. “[F]riendly and dependent Indians are likely to accept without discriminating scrutiny the terms proposed.” United States v. Shoshone Tribe, supra, 304 U.S. at 116, 58 S.Ct. at 797. “[T]he treaty must therefore be construed, not according to the technical meaning of its words to learned lawyers, but in the sense in which they would naturally be understood by the Indians.” Jones v. Meehan, supra, 175 U.S. at 11, 20 S.Ct. at 5. To the Peoria Tribe, Article 7 would have meant the same if it had said that the President “shall”, instead of “may”, determine the way the funds were to be allocated. Their understanding, as I judge it, was that the monies turned over to them would be enough to satisfy their current wants, and the rest was to be invested for profit, with the increment accruing to their benefit. That was “the substance of the right, without regard to technical rules.” United States v. Winans, supra, 198 U.S. at 381, 25 S.Ct. at 664.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Black-feather, supra, 155 U.S. at 188, 192-193, 15 S.Ct. 64, 69, supports, I think, this practical and non-technical reading of the appellants’ treaty. In that case the agreement calling for a five percent “annuity” on a fund composed of proceeds of Indian land sales provided further that the fund was to continue “ ‘during the pleasure of congress, unless the chiefs of the said tribes, or band, by and with the consent of their people, in general council assembled, should desire that the fund thus to be'created, should be dissolved and paid over to them; in which case the president shall cause the same to be so paid, if in his discretion, he shall believe the happiness and prosperity of said tribe would be promoted thereby.” Under this stipulation the fund was dissolved and paid over in 1852. But when the Supreme Court agreed in 1894 with this court that judgment should be entered against the United States for certain sums not credited the Indians at the time of the sale (in 1840), the Court ruled that interest on that amount should be paid, not only until 1852, but until the judgment was paid (sometime after 1894). “If the government had originally accounted for the whole amount for which the court below held it to be liable, it would have paid five per cent, upon this amount until the whole fund was paid over. The fund as to this amount *1009being not yet distributed, the obligation to pay the five per cent, annuity continues until the money is paid over.” 155 U.S. at 193, 15 S.Ct. at 69. This, I take it, was a refusal to hold that the Indians were barred from collecting interest from 1852 to 1894 because they could not prove that the omitted sum would not have been distributed in 1852 along with the other monies. Similarly, in the present case, the appellant Tribe, which did not in fact receive the $172,000 in the 1850’s, should not be precluded from obtaining interest because it cannot prove conclusively that that sum would have been invested, rather than paid over at once, if the United States had sold the lands at public auction as it should have.
To construe the 1854 Treaty as providing for interest would not conflict with any decision of this court. In Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes v. United States, supra, 175 Ct.Cl. (May 13, 1966), cert. denied, Oct. 24, 1966, 385 U.S. 921, 87 S.Ct. 228, the opinion assumed that a statute requiring deposit in the treasury of “all sums received on account of sales of Indian trust lands”, and declaring that interest was to be paid on these deposits, would have applied to monies improperly withheld from the Indians, if it were not for a later act partially modifying the earlier legislation. In Nez Perce Tribe v. United States, supra, 176 Ct.Cl. (July 15, 1966), the particular treaty specified a precise sum to bear interest ($1,000,000), and “did not make the trust open-ended. * * * The Agreement here specified a sum to bear interest, and that sum apparently was paid and did bear interest ; the sum claimed here is over and above the amount specified in the Agreement. In short, the Agreement has reference only to the amount that was actually agreed upon [i. e., $1,626,222] and gives no warrant for reading in a requirement that any sum determined in the future' to be the fair market value should bear interest.” The present treaty, in contrast, is open-ended in its terms; it covers, not a specified sum, but all the net proceeds and receipts from the sales. The $172,000 represents a major part of the proceeds which should have been set apart for the Tribe and invested.6
DURFEE, Judge, joins in the foregoing opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

. The Supreme Court has often indicated that, where possible, such treaties are to be interpreted liberally in favor of the Indians. See The Kansas Indians, 5 Wall. (72 U.S.) 737, 760, 18 L.Ed. 667 (1866); Choctaw Nation v. United States, 119 U.S. 1, 27-28, 7 S.Ct. 75, 30 L.Ed. 306 (1886); Jones v. Meehan, 175 U.S. 1, 11, 20 S.Ct. 1, 44 L.Ed. 49 (1899); State of Minnesota v. Hitchcock, 185 U.S. 373, 396, 22 S.Ct. 650, 46 L.Ed. 954 (1902); United States v. Winans, 198 U.S. 371, 380-381, 25 S.Ct. 662, 49 L.Ed. 1089 (1905).

. It would be wholly inadmissible, in my view, to read the treaty as permitting the President simply to retain the money in the treasury without interest, instead of turning it over to the Indians or investing it. The court does not suggest that the President had this do-nothing option, which undoubtedly would have contravened the Indians’ understanding.

. In recommending that such appropriations no longer be made but that the principal be invested, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs said that the prior practice had “failed to execute” the treaty stipulations, but it is clear to me from the context that he was complaining of the costly drain on the treasury of the practice of continually appropriating the interest without any money coming into the treasury through investment of the principal, and that he well understood the past practice to be in substitution for the payment of the proceeds of investment. He thought, too, that the Indians would be advantaged by investing the money.

. See footnote 2, supra.

. Article 7 of the Delaware treaty provided: “it is expected that the amount of moneys arising from the sales herein provided for, will be greater than the Delawares will need to meet their current wants; and as it is their duty, and their desire also, to create a permanent fund for the benefit of the Delaware people, it is agreed that all the money not necessary for the reasonable wants of the people, shall from time to time be invested by the President of the United States, in safe and profitable stocks, the principal to remain unimpaired, and the interest to be applied annually for the civilization, education, and religious culture of the Delaware people, and such other objects of a beneficial character, as in his judgment, are proper and necessary.”

. It is irrelevant that an award of interest, pursuant to the 1854 treaty, could increase the award to plaintiff by five or six times. If the treaty so provides, we cannot refuse interest because the amount is relatively large.