Turtle Talk

Here are selected materials from Keepseagle v. Vilsack (D. D.C.):

779-1 Keepseagle Motion to Modify

782 Plaintiffs Opposition to Motion to Modify

784 Great Plaints Plaintiffs Amicus Brief

786 US Opposition

787 Intertribal Ag Council Amicus Brief

793 Keepseagle Reply

811 DCT Order

Here is Judge Sullivan’s opening commentary:

The agreement was finalized before the claims process began, so no one anticipated such a large amount of excess funds. But the parties did anticipate that some money might be leftover, so they included in their settlement agreement a cy presprovision, which directs that all leftover funds be distributed in equal shares to a group of charities that serve Native American farmers and ranchers that were to be chosen by Class Counsel. Now, faced with the prospect of over half of the plaintiffs’ damages being distributed in equal shares to charities nominated by Class Counsel, many class members regret that part of their agreement and want to change it. Principal among those class members is Marilyn Keepseagle, who has asked the Court to modify the agreement to create a renewed claims process to distribute more of the money to individual class members. Others, including Class Counsel, ask to modify only the charitable-distribution procedures to accommodate the large amount of money to be distributed by: (1) allowing it to be distributed in unequal shares scaled to an organization’s capacity; (2) spreading the distribution over twenty years; and (3) placing distribution decisions in the hands of a trust run by Native American leaders.

Unless there is a legal basis for this Court to modify the agreement, the Court must enforce the agreement reached in 2011. Doing so would frustrate all parties’ goals. Contrary to the Keepseagles’s wishes, the funds would remain entirely for charitable distribution. Contrary to the goals of Class Counsel and the government, that charitable distribution would be pursuant to the arguably inefficient procedures that were designed to handle a much smaller amount of money. This result could be viewed as both unjust and inefficient. Over half of the class’s damages would be distributed to third parties, despite the relative ease with which class members could be identified, the claims process reopened, and previously successful claimants permitted to prove that they suffered damages in excess of the compensation they have obtained.

The Court’s role is not to craft a new compromise based upon the Court’s own views about the appropriate amount of compensation due to class members who alleged decades-long, and, in many cases, life-altering discrimination at the hands of their federal government. Nor is it to create a preferred process for distributing the funds to charity. Before the Court is a simple question: Are any of the narrow circumstances in which a court’s final judgment may be modified present in this case?