The case is Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians v. Salazar (S.D. Cal.). Here are the materials:
Mesa Grande v Salazar DCT Order
An excerpt:
This case arises from a dispute between two neighboring Indian tribes over beneficial title to several thousand acres of land in this district. Its origins stretch back over a century. According to the FAC, President Grant issued an executive order setting aside approximately 15,000 acres for Mission Indians in California known as “Santa Ysabel — including Mesa Grande.” In a second order in 1883, President Arthur set aside 120 acres for the “Mesa Grande Indian Reservation.”
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The fact that Plaintiff wants to have the current patents — under which the United States is trustee and Santa Ysabel the beneficiary — canceled and reissued to name the United States as trustee and Plaintiff as beneficiary does not change the analysis. The QTA’s Indian lands exception was intended to allow the United States to carry out its commitments to Indian tribes. Block, 461 U.S. at 283; Mottaz, 476 U.S. at 842-43 and n.6. While issuing a land patent in favor of Plaintiff might promote this goal, it would have the effect of taking land from Santa Ysabel. Plaintiff may be tacitly viewing this action as essentially a dispute between it and Santa Ysabel, with the United States as a disinterested stakeholder. Because Plaintiff cannot proceed against Santa Ysabel, it is therefore left to proceed against the United States. Yet allowing Plaintiff or any other litigant to sue the United States to cancel a land patent issued in favor of an Indian tribe would interfere with the United States’ trust commitment to that tribe, which is the very reason the United States has retained its immunity in such matters.
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