Ducheneaux v. Secretary of the Interior of U.S., s. 87-5023
| Citation | 837 F.2d 340 |
| Decision Date | 26 January 1988 |
| Docket Number | 87-5024,Nos. 87-5023,s. 87-5023 |
| Parties | Marie DUCHENEAUX, Appellee, v. SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR OF the UNITED STATES, Appellant, June Ellen Ducheneaux Ledbetter; Lillian Lynn Ducheneaux; Ria Elaine Ducheneaux Seaboy; Orville Rolland Ducheneaux; Larry Douglas Ducheneaux; Deanna Ducheneaux Mulloy; Allen Theodore Ducheneaux; Marlene Kay Ducheneaux; Superintendent of Cheyenne River Agency and United States Bureau of Indian Affairs, Appellants. Marie DUCHENEAUX, Appellee, v. SECRETARY OF THE INTERIOR OF the UNITED STATES; June Ellen Ducheneaux Ledbetter; Lillian Lynn Ducheneaux; Ria Elaine Ducheneaux Seaboy; Orville Rolland Ducheneaux; Larry Douglas Ducheneaux; Deanna Ducheneaux Mulloy; Allen Theodore Ducheneaux; Marlene Kay Ducheneaux, Appellants. Superintendent of Cheyenne River Agency and United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit) |
Maria A. Iizuka, Washington, D.C., and Krista Clark, Mission, S.D., for appellant.
Newell E. Krause, Mobridge, S.D., for appellee.
Before LAY, Chief Judge, FLOYD R. GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge, and MAGILL, Circuit Judge.
In this case we examine the district court's ruling that the theory of spousal contribution applied to divest an Indian's heirs of the land held in trust for him by the United States. We conclude that the district court lacked jurisdiction to order apportionment of the trust property and erroneously overrode a valid will. Accordingly, we reverse.
The facts and procedural history are thoroughly set out in the district court's opinion, Ducheneaux v. Secretary of the Interior, 645 F.Supp. 930 (D.S.D.1986), and will only be summarized here.
Douglas Ducheneaux, a member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, married Marie Snoble, a non-Indian, in 1948. During the marriage, the couple bought five quarter sections of land on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation in South Dakota. The land was placed in Douglas' name and held in trust for him by the United States. 1
The couple separated in 1971, after twenty-two years of marriage. Douglas began but never completed divorce proceedings. Marie then tried unsuccessfully to get partition of the land, but it remained in trust for Douglas.
Douglas died nine years after their separation. In his will he left his whole estate to his nieces and nephews, all enrolled members of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe. He expressly disinherited Marie.
Marie filed objections to the will and sought half of the land acquired during the marriage, alleging that she had contributed in equal part to its acquisition, financially and through her labors as a wife. She claimed that the land should be characterized as being held in a resulting or constructive trust for her benefit. An Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) for the Department of the Interior denied her claim to the land, holding that in view of the unique status and purpose of Indian trust land, the United States owed no trust responsibility to Marie because she is a non-Indian. The denial of relief was affirmed on appeal to the Interior Board of Indian Appeals, and thus became the final decision of the Secretary of the Interior. Marie then appealed to the district court.
The district court reversed, holding that the theory of spousal contribution was applicable because Marie had contributed as much to the acquisition of the property as had her husband. The district court concluded that because she owned an interest in the property, it was hers no matter how Douglas purported to dispose of it in his will. The district court ordered that Marie receive an undivided one-half interest in the property as well as one-half of the rents and profits from the entire five quarter sections of land as of the date of Douglas' death.
Although the district court had appealing and persuasive equitable reasons for ruling as it did, it did not accord sufficient weight to two well-established legal principles which require a contrary result.
First, as the district court noted, the United States holds legal title to an Indian's allotted parcel of land under the allotment system. 645 F.Supp. at 935. As appellants point out, however, the district court did not expressly consider the effect of the Quiet Title Act, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 2409a (QTA), on this case. 2 The QTA prohibits a party from suing the United States when the purpose of the suit is to challenge the government's title to land held in trust for Indians. As the Supreme Court recently stated, while examining the scope of the QTA in United States v. Mottaz, 476 U.S. 834, 106 S.Ct. 2224, 2230, 90 L.Ed.2d 841 (1986):
[The QTA] operates solely to retain the United States' immunity from suit by third parties challenging the United States' title to land held in trust for Indians. * * * Thus, when the United States claims an interest in real property based on that property's status as trust or restricted Indian lands, the Quiet Title Act does not waive the Government's immunity.
Because Marie's suit claims an interest in property to which the United States holds title, the Mottaz reasoning applies to this case, and, as discussed further, deprived the district court of jurisdiction.
The district court did not discuss the QTA, but asserted jurisdiction pursuant to 5 U.S.C. Sec. 706 of the Administrative Procedure Act (APA). 3 In our view this assertion was erroneous. In Block v. North Dakota, ex rel. Board of University and School Lands, 461 U.S. 273, 103 S.Ct. 1811, 75 L.Ed.2d 840 (1983), the Supreme Court held that the QTA is the only means by which adverse claimants can challenge the United States' title to real property. Block, 461 U.S. at 286, 103 S.Ct. at 1819.
This court, in Spaeth v. United States Secretary of the Interior, 757 F.2d 937 (8th Cir.1985), has also held that the QTA bars actions to adjudicate a disputed title to Indian real property in which the United States claims an interest. The Spaeth appellants were non-Indians who sued to clear title to land they had purchased, land which was allegedly trust property. We rejected appellants' contention that section 702 of the APA provided the necessary consent for their suit against the United States, because that section provides that "[n]othing herein confers authority to grant relief if any other statute that grants consent to suit expressly or impliedly forbids the relief which is sought." Spaeth, 757 F.2d at 942. The Spaeth court concluded that if the United States showed a substantial possibility that the lands in dispute were "trust or restricted Indian lands," then the QTA applied to bar appellants' suit against the United States. Id. at 943.
The Supreme Court's analysis in Block that the QTA preempts review under the APA was also adopted by the Eleventh Circuit in State of Florida v. United States Department of Interior, 768 F.2d 1248 (11th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 475 U.S. 1011, 106 S.Ct. 1186, 89 L.Ed.2d 302 (1986). In State of Florida, Florida filed a suit, asserting jurisdiction under the APA, challenging the Secretary's decision to take land in trust for the Seminole Tribe. Florida insisted that its suit was not a quiet title action because it neither sought quiet title, nor did it seek recognition of any property interest in the land at issue. Florida alleged that the APA waived the United States' immunity from suit, because section 702 of the APA waives federal sovereign immunity where the claimant seeks nonmonetary relief in a suit against federal officers.
The court rejected Florida's argument, noting:
[T]he QTA is the exclusive means by which adverse claimants can challenge the United States' title to real property. To permit otherwise, the Court reasoned [in Block ], would allow the QTA's carefully crafted limitations on the availability of relief to be circumvented, thereby rendering the Indian lands exception, among other things, null. The Court declined to consider the APA waiver of sovereign immunity as a supplemental remedy to the extent that the QTA would forbid the relief sought, invoking the exception to the APA waiver where another statute forbids the relief sought. (Citations omitted.)
State of Florida, 768 F.2d at 1254.
The Eleventh Circuit continued:
Although technically the suit in the instant case is not one to quiet title, we conclude that Congress' decision to exempt Indian lands from the waiver of sovereign immunity impliedly forbids the relief sought here. By forbidding actions to quiet title when the land in question is reserved or trust Indian land, Congress sought to prohibit third parties from interfering with the responsibility of the United States to hold lands in trust for Indian tribes. Here, the appellants seek an order divesting the United States of its title to land held for the benefit of an Indian tribe. That appellants do not assert an adverse claim of title to the land, however, does not lessen the interference with the trust relationship a divestiture would cause. Moreover, Congress chose to preclude an adverse claimant from divesting the United States' title to Indian lands held in trust. It would be anomalous to allow others, whose interest might be less than that of an adverse claimant, to divest the sovereign of title to Indian trust lands. Hence we conclude that the APA waiver of immunity is inapplicable in this instance. (Footnotes omitted.)
State of Florida, 768 F.2d at 1254-55; see also, Wildman v. United States, 827 F.2d 1306 (9th Cir.1987).
Thus, because application of the QTA preempts application of the APA, and because the QTA does not waive the sovereign immunity of the United States as to land held in trust for Indians, we hold that the district court was without jurisdiction over this suit.
Marie argues, however, that this court's decision in Conroy v. Conroy, 575 F.2d 175 (8th Cir.1978), is controlling and should apply here. Conroy,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
State of S.D. v. U.S. Dept. of Interior
...claimant can assert a property interest against the United States. Block, 461 U.S. at 286, 103 S.Ct. at 1819; Ducheneaux v. Secretary of the Interior, 837 F.2d 340, 343 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 486 U.S. 1055, 108 S.Ct. 2822, 100 L.Ed.2d 923 (1988). If such a claim is barred by the provisio......
-
Citizens Agaist Cas. Gam., Erie Co. v. Kempthorne
...of the litigation is to challenge title, then the QTA applies no matter how the claims are characterized. See Ducheneaux v. Sec'y of Interior, 837 F.2d 340 (8th Cir.1988) (suit brought under APA in which individual claimed an adverse ownership interest in land held in trust by United States......
-
Calhoon v. Sell
...is to be entitled to rely on the exception, it must be acting to protect Native Americans. As was said in Ducheneaux v. Secretary of Interior of U.S., 837 F.2d 340, 342 (8th Cir.1988): "This court, in Spaeth v. United States Secretary of the Interior, 757 F.2d 937 (8th Cir.1985), has also h......
-
City of Council Bluffs v. U.S. Dep't of the Interior
...the Quiet Title Act's waiver of sovereign immunity in the context of quiet title actions. See, e.g. , Ducheneaux v. Sec'y of the Interior , 837 F.2d 340 (8th Cir. 1988) ; Spirit Lake Tribe v. North Dakota , 262 F.3d 732 (8th Cir. 2001). However, although only in dicta, the Eighth Circuit ex......