Blackfeet & Gros Ventre Tribes v. United States

• Citation: 119 F. Supp. 161,127 Ct. Cl. 807
• Decision Date: 02 March 1954
• Docket Number: No. 2.,2.
• Parties: BLACKFEET & GROS VENTRE TRIBES OF INDIANS v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: Court of Federal Claims

119 F. Supp. 161

127 Ct. Cl. 807

BLACKFEET & GROS VENTRE TRIBES OF INDIANS v. UNITED STATES.

No. 2.

United States Court of Claims.

March 2, 1954.

John W. Cragun, Washington, D. C., for appellants. Ernest L. Wilkinson, Francis M. Goodwin, Donald C. Gormley, and Wilkinson, Boyder, Cragun & Barker, Washington, D. C., were on the briefs.

William D. McFarlane, Washington, D. C., with whom was Asst. Atty. Gen. Perry W. Morton, for defendant.

Before JONES, Chief Judge, and LITTLETON, WHITAKER and MADDEN, Judges.

WHITAKER, Judge.

This is an appeal by the Blackfeet and Gros Ventre Tribes of Indians from a final determination of the Indian Claims Commission. Blackfeet and Gros Ventre Tribes of Indians v. United States, 2 Ind. Cl.Com. 302. The appellants filed a petition with the Commission alleging four claims under the Indian Claims Commission Act, 60 Stat. 1049, 25 U.S.C.A. § 70a. The appellee filed a motion for summary judgment as to all four claims on the ground that the issues involved therein were res adjudicata under the decision of this court in Blackfeet Nations v. United States, 81 Ct.Cl. 101. The motion was granted as to the first claim on the ground that it was barred by the decision of this court in the Blackfeet Nations case, supra, and was denied as to the remaining three claims.

The claim on which the motion was granted and upon which this appeal is being prosecuted was for an amount approximating $18,000,000 as damages for delay in payment¹ of compensation for lands taken by the appellee. The value of the lands, but no interest thereon, was paid appellants in 1935 pursuant to the judgment of this court in the Blackfeet Nations case, supra.

This action was brought under clause (1) of section 2 of the Indian Claims Commission Act, supra, which provides:

"The Commission shall hear and determine the following claims against the United States on behalf of any Indian tribe, band, or other identifiable group of American Indians residing within the territorial limits of the United States or Alaska: (1) claims in law or equity arising under the Constitution, laws, treaties of the United States, and Executive orders of the President; * * *."

and, in the alternative, under clause (5) of that section which gives the Commission jurisdiction of:

"* * * (5) claims based upon fair and honorable dealings that are not recognized by any existing rule of law or equity. * * *"

The Blackfoot Nation, of which appellants, the Blackfeet and Gros Ventre Tribes are members, entered into a treaty with the United States in 1855 which, inter alia, provided:

"Article 4. The parties to this treaty agree and consent, that the tract of country * * * there followed a description of the tract shall be the territory of the Black-foot nation, over which said nation shall exercise exclusive control, excepting as may be otherwise provided in this treaty." Treaty, October 17, 1855, 11 Stat. 657.

A portion of this territory, 12,261,749,76 acres, was taken from the Blackfoot Nation and restored to the public domain without its consent and without payment of compensation, by the Act of April 15, 1874, 18 Stat. 28 and the Executive Order of August 19, 1874.

In 1924 Congress passed a special jurisdictional act allowing the Blackfoot Nation to present in this court its claim for the taking of the land and all claims arising directly from the treaty of 1855, with right of appeal to the Supreme Court. Act of March 13, 1924, 43 Stat. 21.

This court rendered judgment in favor of the Blackfoot Nation for the taking of the land and awarded them $6,130,874.88, representing the value of the land at the time of the taking, reduced by offsets to $622,465.57. No appeal was prosecuted from this decision.

In their appeal to this court from the determination of the Indian Claims Commission dismissing their claim for damages for delay in payment, the appellants contend that the Commission erred in holding that the issues involved were res adjudicata because (1) this court had no jurisdiction to award interest as a part of just compensation under the special jurisdictional act pursuant to which the previous suit was brought; (2) irrespective of the scope of this court's jurisdiction in the former case, where the claim for interest as a part of just compensation was not tried on its merits in the prior suit, Congress, in enacting the Indian Claims Commission Act, did not intend to bar such a claim because of a judgment in a prior suit for the principal value of the land; and (3) that in any event the court in the prior suit did not determine appellants' right to recover under the "fair and honorable dealings" clause of the Act.

The appellee, on the other hand, contends that under the special Act this court had jurisdiction to award just compensation, which included interest; that the failure to request or to grant interest in the prior suit does not prevent the application of the rule of res adjudicata in the instant case; and that Congress in enacting the Indian Claims Commission Act specifically reserved to the United States all defenses except the statute of limitations or laches and, therefore, intended to permit the interposition of the defense of res adjudicata; and, finally, that plaintiffs' claim does not come within the "fair and honorable dealings" clause.

The Court's Jurisdiction Under the Special Jurisdictional Act.

The appellants' right to the designated territory granted to them by the treaty of 1855 represented a property right protected by the Fifth Amendment. Shoshone Tribe of Indians of Wind River Reservation in Wyoming v. United States, 299 U.S. 476, 57 S.Ct. 244, 81 L.Ed. 360, and cases cited therein. A right arose in appellants for just compensation under the Fifth Amendment when the United States in exercising the power of eminent domain took their property for public use. In such case the owner in not only entitled to the value of the property at the time of the taking, but also, if the taking precedes the payment of compensation, to such additional amount as will produce the full equivalent of that value paid contemporaneously with the taking, and a reasonable rate of interest is usually the method employed to ascertain this additional amount. Seaboard Air Line Ry. Co. v. United States, 261 U.S. 299, 306, 43 S.Ct. 354, 67 L.Ed. 664; Brooks-Scanlon Corp. v. United States, 265 U.S. 106, 123, 44 S.Ct. 471, 68 L.Ed. 934; Phelps v. United States, 274 U.S. 341, 344, 47 S.Ct. 611, 71 L.Ed. 1083; Jacobs v. United States, 290 U.S. 13, 16-17, 54 S.Ct. 26, 78 L.Ed. 142; United States v. Creek Nation, 295 U.S. 103, 111, 55 S.Ct. 681, 79 L.Ed. 1331; Shoshone Tribe of Indians of Wind River Reservation in Wyoming v. United States, 299 U.S. 476, 496-497, 57 S.Ct. 244, 81 L.Ed. 360; United States v. Klamath and Moadoc Tribes of Indians, 304 U.S. 119, 123, 58 S.Ct. 799, 82 L.Ed. 1219.

The special jurisdictional act under which a judgment was recovered in this court, Blackfeet Nations v. United States, 81 Ct.Cl. 101 reads:

"Be it enacted * * * That jurisdiction is hereby conferred upon the Court of Claims, with right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, to consider and determine all legal and equitable claims against the United States of the Blackfeet * * * and Gros Ventre Nations * * * for lands or hunting rights claimed to be existing in all said nations or tribes of Indians by virtue of the treaty of October 17, 1855 (Eleventh Statutes at Large, page 657 and the following) * * * with said Indians, and all claims arising directly therefrom, which lands and hunting rights are alleged to have been taken from the said Indians by the United States * * * and the final judgment and satisfaction thereof shall be in full settlement of all said claims." (43 Stat. 21.)

The House Report No. 64, 68th Cong. 1st Sess. 1, accompanying this bill, which was also adopted without change by the Senate in Senate Report No. 141, 68th Cong. 1st Sess. 1, stated in part:

"This legislation provides that the Indians who were parties to the treaties above set forth shall be given the right to be heard by the Court of Claims with right of appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, for the alleged taking of certain lands and hunting rights which were given them under the treaties of July 16 and October 17, 1855." (Italics ours.)

Apparently, therefore, under the special jurisdictional act this court had authority to award just compensation, which included interest.

But appellants deny this. They say this Act limited our jurisdiction to determining only those claims that arose directly from the treaty of 1855, and they say a claim for just compensation did not arise from that treaty, although they were awarded a judgment for the taking of their lands. They argue, somewhat obscurely, that this is so because the jurisdictional act did not mention other treaties, Acts of Congress or Executive Orders, as did those jurisdictional acts under which interest has been allowed as a part of just compensation; that the claim for the principal value of the land arose directly from the treaty of 1855, but that the claim for interest arose from the Constitution when the land was taken for public use by the Act of April 15, 1874, and Executive Order of August 19, 1874.

This argument is unsound. Appellants' right to the land was given them by the treaty of 1855, but their claim for just compensation arose from the taking of the land in 1874. Inasmuch as the treaty of 1855 was the basis of appellants' property rights in the land, any claims that arose from a violation of those rights "arose under or grew out of" that treaty. The treaty in and of itself did not give rise to a claim for anything. A claim did not arise for either the principal value of the land or interest until the rights granted by this treaty were violated by the taking in 1874. At that time a claim arose under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution for just compensation, which included the...