Crow Creek Sioux Tribe v. United States

Plaintiff Crow Creek has sued the United States through the Department of the Interior alleging a Fifth Amendment taking of its reserved water rights. See Winters v. United States, 207 U.S. 564, 576–78, 28 S.Ct. 207, 52 L.Ed. 340 (1908). Defendant filed a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Its motion has several bases, including standing, ripeness, and issues related to the statute of limitations. Defendant also contends that the Government’s bare trust relationship with Crow Creek does not provide the “money-mandating” statute or regulation necessary for jurisdiction in this court. See United States v. Testan, 424 U.S. 392, 400, 96 S.Ct. 948, 47 L.Ed.2d 114 (1976).

Plaintiff’s pleadings do not show how damages from an alleged taking could have accrued currently, and oral arguments did not clarify this threshold issue. Nevertheless, plaintiff urged the court to permit sufficient discovery for it to address defendant’s jurisdictional arguments. Given the opportunity to inquire into the extent of defendant’s diversion of its rights in the waters of the Missouri River, the Tribe argued it would be able to definitively establish damages. Plaintiff believes that granting defendant’s dispositive motion at this stage would be premature.

Crow Creek would pursue expensive and time-consuming litigation to find some evidence that defendant has taken an amount of water that the Tribe could have used for another, unnamed purpose. For example, counsel stated during oral arguments that plaintiff could hire experts to submit reports on various methods of obtaining appraised values for those waters. Plaintiff believes that those values would supply evidence of the damages that its case now lacks.

The relationship between Native American tribes and the United States is a special one in this court; plaintiff is entitled to every latitude in its efforts to establish a cause of action. In this case, however, opening discovery in response to defendant’s motion to dismiss would result in a waste of resources for both parties. We must grant defendant’s motion for the reasons described below.

Crow Creek Trust Claims Dismissed under Tohono O’odham Decision

March 13, 2012Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the opinion:

Crow Creek Sioux Tribe v US

An excerpt:

Plaintiff Crow Creek Sioux Tribe filed this suit on December 29, 2005, seeking damages for Defendant’s breach of fiduciary duties and mismanagement of Plaintiff’s trust corpus. Almost 19 months earlier, on June 2, 2004, Plaintiff had filed a similar case against the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of the Treasury for declaratory and injunctive relief in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Crow Creek Sioux Tribe v. Norton, No. 1:04-cv-00900 (D.D.C.).

Defendant moves to dismiss Plaintiff’s complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) of the Rules of the United States Court of Federal Claims (“RCFC”) and 28 U.S.C. § 1500 (2006). As set forth below, Plaintiff’s District Court [2] action is “for or in respect to” the same claim as the instant action and was pending at the time this action was filed. The Court is therefore bound by § 1500 to dismiss Plaintiff’s action.