Karuk Tribe Of California v. U.S.

• Decision Date: 18 April 2000
• Parties: (Fed. Cir. 2000) KARUK TRIBE OF CALIFORNIA, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CAROL MCCONNELL AMMON, LESLIE AMMON, ELSIE McCOVEY BACON, JULIA LAURETTA BARTOW, OLLIE ROBERTS FOSEIDE, BONITA BACON GREEN, JANICE M. GREEN, DOROTHY WILLIAMS HABERMAN, RICHARD L. HABERMAN, EVELINA HOFFMAN, MARY GIST JACKSON, MARTIN KINDER, SR., RACHEL L. KNIGHT, ERNEST LEWIS, JR., ANNIE MITCHELL LOVE, ARDITH MCCONNELL, MICHAEL MCCONNELL, ROBERT B. MCCONNELL, WALTER C. MCKINNON, THELMA W. MCLAUGHLIN, STEVEN J. METCALFE, EDWARD E. MITCHELL, VETA GILLESPIE MITCHELL, GERTRUDE V. MOLLIER, EDWARD MOORE DAVID E. O'NEILL, HERBERT L. O'NEILL, BARBARA E. ORCUTT, LAWRENCE E. ORCUTT, DAVID ERIC SEVERNS, MARIA E. TRIPP, and KATHRYN ICHELSON WILD,Plaintiffs-Appellants, and YUROK INDIAN TRIBE, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. UNITED STATES, Defendant-Appellee, and HOOPA VALLEY TRIBE Defendant-Appellee. 99-5002,-5003,-5006 DECIDED:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Federal Circuit

Page 1366

209 F.3d 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2000)

KARUK TRIBE OF CALIFORNIA, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. CAROL MCCONNELL AMMON, LESLIE AMMON, ELSIE McCOVEY BACON, JULIA LAURETTA BARTOW, OLLIE ROBERTS FOSEIDE, BONITA BACON GREEN, JANICE M. GREEN, DOROTHY WILLIAMS HABERMAN, RICHARD L. HABERMAN, EVELINA HOFFMAN, MARY GIST JACKSON, MARTIN KINDER, SR., RACHEL L. KNIGHT, ERNEST LEWIS, JR., ANNIE MITCHELL LOVE, ARDITH MCCONNELL, MICHAEL MCCONNELL, ROBERT B. MCCONNELL, WALTER C. MCKINNON, THELMA W. MCLAUGHLIN, STEVEN J. METCALFE, EDWARD E. MITCHELL, VETA GILLESPIE MITCHELL, GERTRUDE V. MOLLIER, EDWARD MOORE DAVID E. O'NEILL, HERBERT L. O'NEILL, BARBARA E. ORCUTT, LAWRENCE E. ORCUTT, DAVID ERIC SEVERNS, MARIA E. TRIPP, and KATHRYN ICHELSON WILD,Plaintiffs-Appellants, and YUROK INDIAN TRIBE, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. UNITED STATES, Defendant-Appellee, and HOOPA VALLEY TRIBE Defendant-Appellee.

99-5002,-5003,-5006

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

DECIDED: April 18, 2000

Appealed from: United States Court of Federal Claims Senior Judge Lawrence S. Margolis

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

Dennis J. Whittlesey, Jackson & Kely, PLLC, of Washington, DC, argued for plaintiff-appellant, Karuk Tribe of California.

William C. Wunsch, of San Francisco, California, argued for plaintiffs-appellants, Carol McConnell Ammon, et al. Of counsel on the brief was Martin S. Putnam, Law Offices of Martin Putnam, of Oakland, California. Of counsel was Jonathan F. Putnam, Laws Offices of Martin Putnam.

John R. Shordike, of Alexander & Karshmer, of Berkeley, California, argued for plaintiff-appellant, Yurok Indian Tribe. With him on the brief was Curtis G. Berkey.

John A. Bryson, Attorney, Appellate Section, Environment and Natural Resources Division, Department of Justice, of Washington, DC, argued for defendant-appellee, United States. With him on the brief were Lois J. Schiffer, Assistant Attorney General; Susan V. Cook and Thomas L. Halkowski, Attorneys. Of counsel on the brief was John Jasper, Attorney, Office of the Solicitor, U.S. Department of the Interior, of Washington, DC.

Thomas P. Schlosser, Morisset, Schlosser, Ayer & Jozwiak, of Seattle, Washington, argued for defendant-appellee, Hoopa Valley Tribe. With him on the brief was K. Allison McGaw.

Before NEWMAN, RADER, and SCHALL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge RADER. Circuit Judge NEWMAN dissents.

RADER, Circuit Judge.

The United States Court of Federal Claims denied the motions for summary judgment filed by the plaintiffs, the Karuk Tribe of California, the Yurok Indian Tribe, and a group of individual Indians led by Carol McConnell Ammon. See Karuk Tribe of California, Carol Ammon, et al., and Yurok Indian Tribe v. United States and Hoopa Valley Tribe, 41 Fed. Cl. 468 (Fed. Cl. 1998). At the same time, the trial court granted motions for summary judgment filed by the defendant and the defendant-intervenor, the United States and the Hoopa Valley Tribe. The Court of Federal Claims determined that plaintiffs did not possess a vested, compensable property interest in the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation. Because the trial court correctly held that plaintiffs never had a compensable property interest the 1988 Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act did not take any private property of the plaintiffs. Therefore, this court affirms.

I.

This case concerns Indian reservation lands in the northwest corner of California. These lands lie in the Hoopa Valley between the Salmon Mountains and the lower Klamath River. The current Hoopa Valley Reservation is a square comprising about ninety thousand acres, and about twelve miles long on a side.¹ The Trinity River runs north through the square and joins the Klamath, there flowing southwest, just below the town of Weitchpec on the northern boundary of the square. The Klamath turns abruptly northwest at its junction with the Trinity and runs through groves of Redwood trees into the Pacific Ocean. A strip of land two miles wide on the lower stretch of the Klamath, extending from the boundary of the square to the Pacific Ocean, was, from 1891 to 1988, also part of the reservation -- the "addition."

An executive order set aside the square as an original Hoopa Valley Reservation on June 23, 1876. Another executive order added the addition to this reservation in 1891. In 1988, the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act severed the addition, making it a reservation for the Yuroks, and established the square as a reservation for the Hoopa Valley Tribe. Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act, 25 U.S.C. §§ 1300i-1300i-11 (1994) (the Settlement Act). The plaintiffs claim that the Settlement Act took their property interests in the reservations.

A brief historical overview sets this case in perspective. All the parties in this case, other than the United States Government, are Indians. These Indians are now organized into the Karuk, Yurok, and Hoopa Valley Indian Tribes, or are individuals who have not elected to join any of these tribes. The Ammon Group plaintiffs state that they comprise "an identifiable group of California Indians, each of whom has an undivided interest in the Hoopa Valley Reservation as it existed before 1988, but who are not eligible for membership in the 'Hoopa Valley Tribe,' organized in 1980." The Karuk, Yurok, and Hoopa Indians share many elements of a common cultural, religious, and economic outlook. See A.L. Kroeber, Handbook of The Indians of California 6 (Dover ed. 1976) (hereinafter, Kroeber).² Historically, the Yuroks resided along the lower Klamath, in what became the addition, while the Karuks resided along the upper Klamath, an area outside any reservation. Yurok means "down the river," while Karuk means "up the river." These names "coincide with the respective homelands." Mattz v. Arnett, 412 U.S. 481, 485 (1973) (citing Kroeber in its original edition, Bulletin 78, Bureau of American Ethnology 1-97 (1925); S. Powers, Tribes of California, cc. 4 and 5, published as 3 Contributions to North American Ethnology 44-64 (1877), and various Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, e.g., the 1856 Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs 249-250.) The Hoopa Valley Indians lived in the Hoopa Valley along the Trinity River. Therefore, the square - now the Hoopa Valley Indian Reservation - was historically the homeland of the Hoopas. The addition was the homeland of the Yuroks. Weitchpec, on the square's northern boundary, was originally a Yurok settlement.

On January 24, 1848, when James Marshall saw the sparkle of gold on the South Fork of the American River in northern California, the native population of California was about five times as large as the settler population. By September 4, 1850, when California became the 31st state, the settlers easily outnumbered the natives. See Byron Nelson, Jr., Our Home Forever: A Hupa Tribal History 47 (1978) (hereinafter, Hupa). To relieve the tensions between the stagnant native and the exploding settler populations, the United States appointed commissioners in 1851 to negotiate treaties with the California Indians. These commissioners negotiated eighteen treaties with the Indians, setting aside about 7.5 million acres of California land for Indian use. These treaties, however, required ratification by the United States Senate. The Senators from California opposed these treaties. The Senate considered the treaties in secret session, but never ratified them. These treaties were, therefore, always a nullity. Indeed, they were filed away from public view in 1852, and not seen again until 1905.³

Meanwhile, settlers attracted to California by gold were succeeded by others attracted by fertile land. Violence erupted amongst miners, farmers, Indians, and the U.S. Army. To quell the violence, Congress authorized the President "to make five military reservations [with no more than twenty-five thousand acres in each] . . . for Indian purposes." Act of March 3, 1853, 10 Stat. 238. The same Act appropriated funds for moving the "Indians in California" to the reservations. Id. Under this authority, the United States by executive order established an Indian reservation in 1855 on a strip of land on the lower Klamath River, in Yurok territory. 2 Executive Orders Relating to Indian Reservations 39 (1922). This Klamath River reservation was to "commenc[e] at the Pacific Ocean and extend[] 1 mile in width on each side of the Klamath River . . . with the provision . . . that . . . a sufficient quantity be cut off from the upper end thereof to bring it within the limit of 25,000 acres . . . ." Id.

The Hoopa refused to move to this reservation. Hupa, at 65. Violence between settlers and Indians escalated, and the U.S. Army had to be reinforced. See Painter v. United States, 33 Ct. Cl. 114, 1800 WL 2032 (1897). Finally, Congress stepped in again, and on April 8, 1864, authorized the President, "at his discretion," to set apart four tracts of land "to be retained by the United States for purposes of Indian Reservations, which shall be of suitable extent for the accommodation of the Indians of said state . . . ." Act of April 8, 1864, 13 Stat. 39 (the 1864 Act).

On August 12, 1864, Austin Wiley, the federal Government's Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the State of California, signed a "[t]reaty of peace and friendship between the United States Government and the Hoopa, South Fork, Redwood, and Grouse Creek Indians." Hupa, at 89. This treaty, which was not presented to Congress for ratification, purported to obligate the United States to set aside "for reservation purposes for the sole use and benefit of the tribes of Indians herein named, or such tribes as may hereafter avail themselves of the benefit of this treaty, the whole of Hoopa valley." Id.

On August 21, 1864, Wiley published at Fort Gaston, in the Hoopa Valley, a proclamation that he had "this day located an Indian reservation, to be known and called by the name and title of the Hoopa...