Court Opinion

ID: 9453339
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:10:19.488237+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:36.914599
License: Public Domain

NICHOLS, Judge
(dissenting):
I regret that I feel compelled to dissent in this case, though perhaps not as keenly as if my views commanded majority support, leading to a new trial and further delay in righting the ancient wrongs done the ancestors of these Indians. My minority position, happily, exempts me from feeling any moral scruples against saying what I think. Then too, I am not certain the errors I am concerned about do not to a degree offset each other, so that in the overall, the amount the court awards may be not so far removed from what I would have awarded if I had had sole charge of the litigation from its beginning.
A preliminary question is this: the court lays great stress on the stipulations and concessions of the parties as eliminating inquiry into issues that otherwise it would have to explore, as e. g., the dates of “taking.” I agree that the court is never obliged to inquire into disputes the parties have abandoned, and often it is wiser not to, as in Wagner v. United States, Ct.Cl. 387 F.2d 966, decided December 15th, 1967. It is not deemed to have decided any issue that merely “lurks in the record.” Clearly, however, it is not bound, unless it chooses to be, by stipulations as to what the law is, or involving or incorporating a legal conclusion, Sanford’s Estate v. Commissioner, 308 U.S. 39, 51, 60 S.Ct. 51, 84 L.Ed. 20, reh. denied 308 U.S. 637, 60 S.Ct. 258, 84 L.Ed. 529 (1939); The Sac and Fox Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma v. United States, 315 F.2d 896, 901, 161 Ct.Cl. 189, 198 cert. denied 375 U.S. 921, 84 S.Ct. 266, 11 L.Ed.2d 165 (1963). In this category I would put e. g., a stipulation as to the date of a “taking” in eminent domain. At times a judge may consider the parties have boxed him into a position he anticipates he will have to break out of sooner or later. Then he should speak out, if for no other purpose, so he will not be forever explaining and distinguishing the case in the future. Here we deal with legal doctrines that will remain alive and important as long as there is a Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
I take up now the matter I find troublesome.
FIRST, The Fisheries. It does indeed seem strange that plaintiffs get nothing for the fisheries in view of our recitals in the original opinion at 147 Ct.Cl. 341, 177 F.Supp. 468, “The most valuable asset lost to these Indians was their fishing rights * * No doubt, as we now hold, the supposed value of the fish is not an appropriate valuation technique. No doubt too, as the court says, no one owns or can own any exclusive fishing rights in navigable water, other than, perhaps, relating to shellfish. I would have supposed that one who *792owned as plaintiffs here did, all the fast lands bordering on so many sounds, bays, and coves, teeming with fish, would have enjoyed such enormous advantages over others in exploiting the fisheries thereon that willing buyers would have paid enhanced prices for the land, even if they could obtain therewith no ownership in the fish. A person owning a building on Fifth Avenue might claim it was worth more because of its favorable location without thereby asserting any proprietorship in the vehicular and pedestrian tiaffic daily passing by his door. The recent case of United States v. Rands, 389 U.S. 121, 88 S.Ct. 265, 19 L.Ed.2d 329 (U.S.Nov. 13, 1967), raises some doubt in my mind about this, but I would have considered whether I could distinguish it if the record gave support to such a theory. The result of our commissioner’s going off on the wrong tangent here is apparently that plaintiffs get nowhere at all in just the area where we thought originally they had the best case. I hope this decision is not taken as authority that, should an island such as Cuttyhunk, Block Island, or Tangier be taken by eminent domain, the court in setting a valuation must utterly ignore the fact that fishing goes on from there.
SECOND, The Gold Mines. The taking dates herein, as stipulated, were dates of Congressional enactments or of patents, in most cases confirming titles of persons the court calls “squatters”, who had been in occupancy long before. Thus it is the awards to the Indians include payment for some fine producing gold mines, in fact discovered and developed by whites. As the commissioner finds, these mines required the developers to make large capital investments. A squatter is, I suppose, a trespasser, and I find it hard to believe the investors would have knowingly invested in a trespass from which they might be legally ousted at any time. As a practical matter they conceived of themselves as owners, with the confident expectation that their de facto ownership would eventually become a good paper title by Governmental act. After entry but before patent no one, I am sure, would have paid 10$i for the Indians’ underlying title. The Indians’ cause of action as now validated by Congress accrued on the first entry, for the legislation makes the Government liable for “failure to protect” as well as for a taking. The “failure to protect” was complete and utter between entry and patent. I think the enactments and patents, relied on as takings, were not intended to extinguish the Indian title, which was not at that time deemed to exist. They were intended to quiet title as between the miners and the United States. A person could not get a patent if he was not already in possession. A mere trespasser, not in good faith, will possibly lose the value of improvements it has itself placed on the land. American Cement Plaster Co. v. Acme Cement Plaster Co., 181 S.W. 257 (Tex.Civ.App., 1915); Cf. Christopher v. Garrett, 292 S.W.2d 926 (Tex.Civ.App., 1956); but it is a misconstruction of the enabling legislation here to put the Government in the position of such a trespasser. So far as I know it has occurred but is contrary to most precedent to make a lawful taker pay for an improvement it has itself installed in good faith. See discussions of the problem of valuing land taken by eminent domain when the taker has in good faith improved the land prior to the taking. Orgel, Valuation Under Eminent Domain (1936) 310 and ff.; 5 Nichols, Eminent Domain (3d Ed. 1952) 224 and ff.
However, if the Indians must be treated as owning the gold mines, still it is wrong to base the award on estimates of the unmined gold in place. Such an award is condemned as speculative. United States v. Sowards, 370 F.2d 87 (10th Cir. 1966) and cases cited at p. 90. Likewise it is wrong to use the estimate of gold in place as a starting point to estimate further profits. United States v. Meyer, 113 F.2d 387 (7th Cir.), cert. denied 311 U.S. 706, 85 L.Ed. 459 (1940). 5 Nichols, Eminent Domain, supra, 230, and cases cited. This is an estimate on an estimate.
*793In my opinion the Indian Claims Commission handled the problem of valuing Indian lands containing minerals with perfect correctness in The Winnebago Tribe and Nation of Indians, Et Al. v. United States, 16 Ind.Cl.Comm. 81 (1965), which we are affirming without opinion, Ct.Cl. (1968). The Commission refused to make a fact finding speculating on possible profits after the taking date from the mineral involved. For consistency with the proceedings in Tlingit and Haida, we should be reversing the Commission, but rightly we are not.
As a practical matter, the original proprietors of the soil, however well protected by law and skillfully represented, could not have expected to pocket all or most of the profits from mining on their lands. It is common knowledge that the party who has the capital, the equipment, the know how, and the access to markets, will always take the lion’s share. The commissioner’s method of valuation here donates these things to the Indians.
I think a proper award for the property, such of it as had its highest and best use for mining, would be made by postulating a willing buyer and a willing seller negotiating for the fee simple title on the date of first entry, both skillful of course, both knowing whatever was ascertainable about the geology of the area, and both protected by law. United States v. Emigrant New York Indians, 177 Ct.Cl. 263, 289 (1966). From this viewpoint, I would not be too much influenced by the history of the mines that were successful, nor would I deem plaintiffs necessarily out of court as to mineral properties we know by hindsight were never successful. Prices between willing buyers and willing sellers are always influenced by the known presence of minerals, to some extent, however slight.
I am sure if the commissioner had adhered to proper valuation methods his awards for mineral properties would have been much less over all.
THIRD, The Town Sites. I believe these too are grossly overvalued. Again this results from the stipulated taking dates. The Capital of Alaska, Juneau, was not patented until it had been a going concern for many years. Hence the Indians are being paid for a white man’s town. If the State House had been built on the taking date, no doubt there would be an award for that also.
FOURTH, The Timber Land. As to this, I merely note that there is no indication that the possession of the Indians was disturbed before the stipulated taking dates, so the problems do not arise.
In short, the Indians are being denied payment for the most valuable de facto asset of which they were deprived and instead are being compensated for de jure assets they never could have reasonably supposed belonged to them. I am sure they will be greatly impressed with the wonders of the white man’s justice. We may hold that events prior to the case’s coming back before us limit our power to influence the course of events at this point, but I think it appropriate for one of us to register lack of complacency, at least.