Turtle Talk

Here is the opinion in San Carlos Apache Tribe v. United States.

An excerpt from the majority:

The San Carlos Apache Tribe (“Tribe”) appeals from a decision of the United States Court of Federal Claims, which dismissed the Tribe’s monetary damages claim against the United States for an alleged breach of fiduciary duty relating to water rights in the Gila River. Because the Court of Federal Claims correctly granted the government’s motion to dismiss the Tribe’s claim for lack of jurisdiction, we affirm.

And from the dissent:

For decades the United States stood together with the San Carlos Apache Tribe, in federal and state court, pressing the position that the 1935 Globe Equity Decree did not finally determine the Tribe’s water rights in the Gila River. When the issue was resolved in 2006 in the Arizona Supreme Court, and the Tribe’s water rights were finally lost, the Tribe filed a claim for monetary damages in the Court of Federal Claims. In that court, for the first time, the United States took the position that the claim became time-barred six years after the Globe Equity Decree of 1935. The government now argues, and my colleagues now agree, that the Tribe was required to file this suit for the value of the lost water rights, before the water rights had been finally lost and before any claim for damages arose. The court holds that this Tucker Act claim became time-barred in 1941, although its premises did not arise until the Arizona Supreme Court finally resolved the water rights issue in 2006. Thus this court provides “yet another instance of the manifest injustice which has assailed the Tribe at virtually every turn since their dealings with the United States and its citizens began.” United States v. Gila Valley Irrigation Dist., 804 F. Supp. 1, 5 (D. Ariz. 1992). I respectfully dissent.