Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians v. United States
| Decision Date | 20 May 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 14-1051L,14-1051L |
| Court | U.S. Claims Court |
| Parties | MESA GRANDE BAND OF MISSION INDIANS, Plaintiff, v. UNITED STATES, Defendant. |
Claim by an Indian band of a taking arising from interference with its right to an 80-acre tract of land; objective basis for awareness of accrual of claim; 28 U.S.C. § 2501; plausible allegations of entitlement to relief; RCFC 12(b)(6); joinder; RCFC 19
Derril B. Jordan, Washington, D.C., for plaintiff. With him on the briefs and at the hearing was Michael D. Sliger, Clawson, Michigan. Of counsel was Don B. Miller, Boulder, Colorado.
Kristofor R. Swanson, Senior Trial Attorney, Natural Resources Section, Environment and Natural Resources Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for defendant. With Mr. Swanson on the briefs were John C. Cruden, Assistant Attorney General, Environment and Natural Resources Division, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., and Bethany Sullivan, Division of Indian Affairs, Office of the Solicitor, United States Department of the Interior, San Francisco, California. At the hearing was Jennifer Turner, Division of Indian Affairs, Office of the Solicitor, United States Department of the Interior, Washington, D.C.
This case concerns property located in the mountains of northeastern San Diego County, California, and turns on events dating back to 1875. The property at issue is an 80-acre tract (the "1926 Tract") that has had a small spring providing a source of water in an arid area. See Pl.'s Mem. in Opp'n to the United States' Mot. to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction ("Pl.'s Opp'n") at 1, ECF No. 10. Tracing title back to a congressional enactment in 1926, the Act of May 10, 1926, Pub. L. No. 69-209, 44 Stat. 496 (1926) ("1926 Act"), plaintiff, the Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians ("Mesa Grande Band"), claims entitlement to ownership of the subject property. On July 30, 1980, however, a patent for the 1926 Tract was issued by the Department of the Interior to the United States in trust for the Santa Ysabel Band of Mission Indians ("Santa Ysabel Band"), a neighboring band. The Mesa Grande Band did not contemporaneously receive notice of the patent's issuance.
On October 28, 2014, the Mesa Grande Band filed suit in this court alleging that the grant of the patent by the Department of the Interior interfered with its property rights and effected a taking in contravention of the Fifth Amendment. See Compl. at 1. Alternatively, the Band avers that the award of the patent to the Santa Ysabel Band breached of the government's fiduciary duty to hold the land in trust for plaintiff's exclusive use and possession. See Compl. at 1. The government has moved to dismiss on three grounds: (1) lack of subject matter jurisdiction under Rule 12(b)(1) of the Rules of the Court of Federal Claims ("RCFC"); (2) failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted pursuant to RCFC 12(b)(6); and (3) failure to join a necessary party under RCFC 12(b)(7) and RCFC 19. See United States' Mot. to Dismiss for Lack of Jurisdiction and Mem. in Support Thereof ("Def.'s Mot."), ECF No. 7.
The dispute involves several parcels of land located in the mountains northeast of San Diego, California. The parcels serve as the reservations of two distinct bands of Indians: the Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians and the Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel, formerly known as the Santa Ysabel Band of Diegueño Mission Indians. See Def.'s Mot. at 2 ). Both bands are federally-recognized. See id. at 1-2; see also Compl. ¶ 3. Disagreements concerning the beneficial ownership of these tracts arose decades ago. One collection of parcels (the "1893 Tracts") was the subject of a prior suit between plaintiff and the Secretary of the Department of the Interior in the Southern District of California. See Mesa Grande Band of Mission Indians v. Salazar, 657 F. Supp. 2d 1169 (S.D. Cal. 2009).2 The remaining parcel, the 1926 Tract, is the subject of the present suit.
On December 27, 1875, President Ulysses S. Grant issued an executive order setting aside three tracts of land encompassing approximately 15,000 acres for the "Santa Ysabel - including Mesa Grande." See Compl. ¶ 5; see also Def.'s Mot. Ex. 1 (). Eight years later, on June 19, 1883, President Chester A. Arthur issued another executive order withdrawing an additional 120-acre local tract for "the permanent use and occupation of the Mission Indians in the State of California," specifically for a Mesa Grande family of three people. Def.'s Mot. Ex. 2 (). In 1891, Congress passed "An act for the relief of the Mission Indians in the State of California," Act of Jan. 12, 1891, 26 Stat. 712, creating a three-person commission to select "a reservation for each band or village of the Mission Indians residing within [the State of California], which reservation shall include, as faras practicable, the lands and villages which have been in the actual occupation and possession of said Indians," id. § 2. Selections by the commission (known as the "Smiley Commission") became valid when approved by the Secretary of the Interior and the President, after which the Secretary was authorized to issue land patents for each reservation. Id. §§ 2-3; see also Def.'s Mot. at 2-3. Patented land was to be held in trust by the United States for the "use and benefit of the band or village to which it [was] issued[.]" 26 Stat. 712, § 3.
The Smiley Commission subsequently investigated the lands and prepared a report to the Secretary of the Interior containing its recommendations for land set-asides. The report recommended that the three tracts addressed by the Executive Order in 1875 be set aside for the Santa Ysabel Band ("Santa Ysabel Tracts 1, 2, and 3"), and the 120-acre tract set aside by the Executive Order in 1883 be patented to the Mesa Grande Band ("Mesa Grande Tract"). On December 29, 1891, President Benjamin Harrison approved the report by executive order, and patents conforming to the recommendation were issued on February 10, 1893. See Compl. ¶ 8; see also Def.'s Mot. Ex. 4 (). Nonetheless, members of the Mesa Grande Band lived on Santa Ysabel Tracts 1 and 2, and those tracts came to be identified as the Mesa Grande Reservation. See Def.'s Mot. Ex. 10 (Letter from Frank L. Haggerty, Jr., Acting Area Field Representative, to Area Realty Officer (Mar. 10, 1971)) ("[F]rom the days of the establishment of the Santa Ysabel Reservation, the Mesa Grande Band has used Santa Ysabel Tracts 1 and 2, and the Santa Ysabel Band has used Santa Ysabel Tract No. 3 based on custom and tradition."); see also id. ().
The 1926 Tract is an 80-acre parcel that contains a spring and adjoins the eastern boundary of one of the 1893 Tracts patented to the Santa Ysabel Band ("Santa Ysabel Tract 1") and consists of "the west half of the Southwest quarter of Section 11, Township 12 South, Range 2 East of the San Bernardino Meridian." Compl. ¶ 10; see also Hr'g Tr. 10:15-25 (Apr. 20, 2015) (), 29:20-22 ("[Santa Ysabel] Tract 1 is the L-shaped tract, and the 80 acres [of the 1926 Tract] is in the right angle of the L."); see generally Pl.'s Opp'n Ex. 9 at 5 (Map, Mission Indian Reservations (1938)).3 The land was described in the 1920s as being "rough, rocky, and in a canyon." Compl. ¶ 38. It is "remotely located, isolated, [and] not accessible by any roadway, and may be accessed from [Santa Ysabel Tract 1] only by foot over extremely rough terrain." Compl. ¶ 40.
On June 1, 1925, Charles L. Ellis, Superintendent of the Bureau of Indian Affairs' Mission Agency, requested that the Commission of Indian Affairs set aside the parcel "for the use of the Mesa Grand[e] Indians," observing that the land contained a spring "which furnisheswater to stock on the M[e]sa Grand[e] Indian [R]eservation," but "[i]t has been reported that a white man is threatening to fence it up," and noting that members of the Mesa Grande Band "have used it for years and consider it theirs, but there is no record that it has ever been reserved for their use." See Pl.'s Opp'n Ex. 1 (Letter from Ellis to Commissioner (June 1, 1925)). Subsequently, on August 25, 1925, the Secretary of the Interior wrote to President Calvin Coolidge requesting that the tract be temporarily withdrawn "for the Mesa Grande Band or Village of Indians until legislation could be enacted." See Pl.'s Opp'n Ex. 12, at 4 (); see also Compl. ¶ 12. Two days later, on August 27, 1925, President Coolidge signed Executive Order No. 4297 temporarily reserving the tract "for the use and benefit of the Indians of the Mesa Grande Reservation" until March 5, 1927. Def.'s Mot. Ex. 5 (); see also Compl. ¶ 13. The temporary withdrawal did "not affect any existing legal right of any person to any of the land described [t]herein." Id.
Confusion arose following the...
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